What flavor are you?

On my way home from work the other day I was speaking to Ted on the phone.  He was asking me how my day at work had been.  My day had lasted longer than usual, I explained to him.  At work there is usually one doctor operating out of two operating rooms, working first in one room, and then the other.  On this particular day we happened to have two doctors working.  When doctor number one was done with all their patients, we switch gears and started over with doctor number two.  The day lasted longer than usual.  The way I described my day to Ted came out like this, “The day was good.  Long.  We had two different doctors today.  The first one was the cranky mean doctor and the second was the lady doctor who is so sweet.  So we had two different flavors today.”  I don’t know why it came out that way – describing the two different personalities as flavors.  But that seemed to fit.  One was sweet, and the other sour.  One was pleasant, and the other left a bad taste in your mouth.

In the middle of that same work day, I had questioned a co-worker who had to work physically close with doctor number one, about how she felt working for Dr. Cranky Pants.  She answered me that she often goes to bed at night, thinking about what her next work day will be like.  She felt bad, she continued to tell me, that she was not too excited about coming to work when she recalled the doctor she would be working with.  She felt bad about thinking that way, but commented about how SHE would feel if someone else was thinking that same way about working with HER.  Wouldn’t that be sad and horrible if you knew that people were not too eager to have to be around you?

So still on the same work day, another co-worker whom I work with only perhaps once a week, was being silly and referred to ME in a comment to another employee when she said, “Well, I’m not like Laurel over there all quiet and reserved.”  She was being sincere.  I laughed and told her that I was actually many faceted and the other sides of Laurel were simply not reflected in the work place!  I must say, it was nice to be referred to as “quiet and reserved” and not “mean and cranky.”  But the whole day’s events had me seriously considering this whole issue of ‘how others see me.’  When I was a young mother, did others see a good mom or a bad mom?  Am I someone that others like to work with?  Am I perceived as nice or not-so-nice?  Do people choose another pew at church to avoid sitting with me?

Ultimately, a person could go bonkers if they worried about pleasing everyone they came in contact with.  And even more ultimately, the only one we really have to please in the end is God.  <gulp>

Doctor number one the other day was definitely the sourest flavor of lemon:  bitter and causing one’s face to scrunch up.  Doctor number two was peach pie.  She was warm and sweet, and just happy and something you wanted.  She made us all smile.  I want to be vanilla flavored.  I love vanilla ice cream.  Such a pure flavor – all creamy and, well, vanilla-y.  Of course I like to change it up – top me with raspberry sauce some days.  And on other days I am full of chocolate chip cookie dough.  So I have a good base of vanilla cream – but I like to change it up to fit the circumstances!

Do you know different flavored people?  Life certainly is full of a menu of different people!

I hope God likes vanilla 🙂

just Laurel