I read 3 chapters of Mansfield Park, but Marjorie said she had difficulty understanding who was who. I can identify with that. If I hadn't seen the film I would also have trouble. So I went to buy a DVD of it for her.
The store Best Buy had none in stock but very cleverly encouraged me to order it online at the store from them to be sent to me by post. This way they don't mss out on a sale.
After I had read the 3 chapters Marjorie expressed a wish for me to tell her about myself. She said she didn't really know me.
This got me thinking. Why hadn't I told her much about my life? I've heard myself tell people my life story more than once, yet I don't talk about myself when I'm with her.
The answer could be that she has not asked me questions about myself, has not seemed particularly interested in me. She has asked a few times how the girls are, but has not asked anything specific about them.
I have a friend, Maggie who I used to visit maybe once a year and each time we met I was always amazed that she remembered the details about my family and asked pertinent questions about them. She was genuinely interested and this made me realise that I was not so generous in spirit.
I will talk away about my favourite subject (myself) to anyone who is interested, but not if the recipient isn't.
So what do I do? She wants me to talk about myself she says. Today during our conversations I injected some anecdotes about my own life that were relevant to the conversation but she didn't seem to be interested in what I said.
I know that we are surrounded by people who mirror us and I've seen in myself a self centredness that I'm not proud of. I think it's time I changed.
