The Whatever Project

My name is Joey . . . and I have a problem.

I have a tendency to be cranky.

I believe that I cover it pretty well. Only a select few of you out there know that I’ve been battling this affliction most of my life. But those of you who know I have it truly wish that you weren’t one of the selected. Please forgive me.

I am not plagued with indiscriminate crankiness. No, my crankiness is finely tuned on the acts and attitudes of other people. You see, I’m judgmental.

Now, most people are judgmental to some extent. If you don’t believe that’s true, I would guess that you haven’t watched the news, read a paper, browsed the net, or had coffee with a friend . . . ever.

I find it ironic that I absolutely detest it when others are judgmental. I have banned certain television channels at our office and I refuse to read the comments on certain blogs. I don’t think that I would even tolerate judgmental talk from other individuals . . . except, I often walk away from those conversations with the sinking feeling that I was leading the cranky parade.

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time driving through West Texas. On one of those journeys, alone in my car, I had an immense bout of crankiness about one certain individual. I was beside myself with thoughts of his stupidity, laziness, disregard for human kind, and, even though I knew it to be false, his total lack of affection for puppies.

As I felt my negativity levels soar, I suddenly thought, “I don’t want to do this.”

At the next truck stop, I pulled off and rifled through my back pack. With Bible in hand, I went to Philippians 4 and to the “whatevers.”

The answer to my crankiness was right there. I started thinking that whenever I begin to get cranky towards someone, I needed to start building a “whatever” list for that person. Further, I realized that, in order to prevent crankiness, I could inoculate everyone I know by saving up “whatevers” for them.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. (Philippians 4:8, NIV)

This is my Whatever Project. I hope it makes life better for all of you. I know it will for me.

“Whatever.”

4 Comments

  1. Joey,

    What a great reminder to all of us. It gives me a different perspective on what I need to do due to what I have experienced here in Cairo few days ago.

    A huge thanks…it came at the right time 🙂

    Raquel

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