My youngest son came from Vegas over Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we stayed up till around midnight just talking about stuff. I mentioned that like most people, I tend to consider myself the ‘average’. In other words, I think most of us tend to think we’re a good median. We think we are reasonable, and that “most” people reasonable people would think like we do, therefore, we’re the average.  

My son said he did not think that way. He realized some years ago that he did not think like so many other people. 

Which made me question my own stance on this: am I average?  

It seems to me that humans almost by default consider themselves the average, reasonable person. I’m talking here about our basic thoughts/views on life…. our approach to thinking about things. We all probably consider that we’re above average in some ways, and we also probably recognize areas where we are outliers. But in general, we probably think of ourselves as the ‘normal’.  

But again, I’m just thinking about this myself from my point of view, which I’ve considered the normal. 

I’ve recognized this assumption in many arguments I’ve made. I’ve tried to state it in the arguments so that those who disagree will know I’m not basing my hypothesis on some rigorous test results, I’m just listening to people and commenting based on my own standpoint. I recognize that I may be wrong. Maybe my viewpoint isn’t average at all. 

In point of fact, my son and I were discussing the same topic I recently posted on: a video I watched of an interview with several women over what they wanted in life. I come at relationships from my own standpoint, what I’ve experienced.

I’ll have to give an example tangentially related to that video, in the area of men/women relationships. From a Biblical perspective, men are given leadership over the home. But that apparently means wildly different things to different people. I grew up in a home with two parents that loved and respected each other. My father led, but in a supremely respectful and reasonable way. To this day, I can’t think of an area where my father did something egregiously wrong and my mom adored him. 

I’ve not been so great, but I’ve always tried to treat my wife with respect and love. In fact, while I accept the responsibility of the leadership, I will always take my wife’s thoughts and desires into consideration. As much as possible, I’m going to sacrifice myself to give her what she wants. In fact, THAT is what leadership, in a Christian sense, looks like: Jesus humbled himself and came to serve. If you want to lead, you must be the servant.  

But while that’s my experience, I know there are others that think of leadership in the worldly sense, even in the church. Jesus told the disciples that the leaders of this world lord over their people and flaunt their authority, but we believers aren’t supposed to be like that. Yet, human nature is still there and too many of us, when given a position of leadership, think of how we can use it for our advantage rather than thinking of our responsibility. And that’s what leadership is: leadership entails responsibility TO other people, not benefits FROM those that follow. Yet still too many men think it’s their divine right to be served. From a Christian perspective, that’s backward, but I know it happens.  

Where I get screwed up is… I don’t know HOW much it happens. Since I don’t think that way, I tend to think that ‘most’ other men don’t either… because I consider my way of thinking to be the normal. But maybe I’m just wrong in that. 

One thing I know is that we each have our own experiences to go by. Someone who is exposed to great relationships, as I was, will tend to see lots of positives in relationships. Someone who was exposed to abusive relationships will have a whole other take on relationships. All we have is our own experiences. As I mentioned earlier, I tend to think myself average. But again, as my son mentioned, perhaps I’m not the normal.