Ever since I can remember, I have constantly been told that “the world does not revolve around you.” Those seven words gave the person saying it an automatic win in whatever argument we where having and made me feel guilty about whatever I was complaining about. It was a phrase that could turn any plea for justice, any outburst of anger, and any feeling of overwhelming hurt back on me. However, recently I have realized one important facet to the phrase that I had never realized; just because the world does not revolve around me, that does not mean that it can revolve around someone else. What I mean by this is often times when I am told that the world does not revolve around me it is because the world is in fact revolving around someone else. Therefore, I began to think about how one phrase is being used as a valid argument that gets the receiver to raise the white flag. Think of it- if you are “not worthy” to have the world revolve around you then why is someone else? What is actually happening when someone tells us that the “world does not revolve around you” they are telling us that are feelings are not worth hearing out, that no matter how wronged or hurt we feel it is unimportant.
As ideal as I might be I am also deeply self-aware and I will not put it besides me and say that I have never turned a situation and only focused on how inconvenient it might be for me because in reality I probably have (as have so many people). However, that same self-awareness is what makes me realize that most of the time when people tell me “the world does not revolve around you” it is because they are trying to keep it revolving around them. In addition, I ask what is wrong with me looking out for my best interest, and pretending that maybe just maybe the world in fact revolved around me and not a sphere of hot plasma at the center of our solar system.
Finding a scenario is hard because the scenario can occur in many contexts and each one of them is valid. It can occur when having to select a date to get together with friends, playing the dates for a vacation, or even deciding when to work on a group project. Often times what I have noticed occurring is that those with the most power tend to make the decision unilaterally, and as politics shows us dictatorships are not very effective. I am going to use the example of a group project because it is the most simple.
The scenario is as follows:
It is a Monday morning and your professor assigns an assignment due in two weeks. You meet up with your group and the professor appoints your peer as the team leader. While exchanging phone numbers and setting up the google docs, you inform your teammates that next week is extremely busy for you and you want to plan your time accordingly. Another, member of the group agrees with you but the team leader says “do not worry about it, we will be fine I will let you know when we are meeting.” Several days go by and nothing has been said and the project has not been worked on. Over the past few days you get assigned another paper and you meet with your academic advisor to make plans. Things are getting busy. In addition, the team leader is talking to the team member that they know and have decided that they are going to go out of town the weekend before the assignment is do. Finally it is the Thursday before your exam is due, you are overwhelmed by a busy schedule and you get a text “we are meeting tonight, see you then”. You have to finish the paper and truthfully have other things of equal importance to focus on. You don't make it but offer to do your part and complete it in a timely matter. However, the team leader tells the professor that it was difficult to get you to attend meetings and the next time you work together they tell you to “make sure your schedule is cleared because the world does not revolve around you”. Sound Familiar?
However, let us take a step back and analyze because several issues are occurring.
The initial issue I see is that the leader does not ask the rest of the team what dates work for them, instead they planned their schedule and expected you to sacrifice and give up your time and prior plans to work with it. Why is it that just because they were assigned power is it that they get to choose what is convenient for them without any say or opinion? Why is it that they could not ask and try to work with everyones plan?
The next issue I see is that you warned them of the hectic week you had ahead. Before plans where made, before there weekend trip was booked, before anyone had time to move forward you were honest and open with what you had planned and what you need in order to participate and give the group the 100% you so desperately wanted to. However, they disregarded that in turn disregarding your opinion which is disregarding you.
The third issue is the fact that no communication is being had they inform you at the very last minute once you have booked your day and it is to late to change even though they have known for some time when it was going to happen? Do they not realize that buy doing that they are making it even more difficult for you to attend. Rather than telling you as early as possible where something can be done.
Lastly, they do not let you live down the fact that no matter how hard you wanted to make the meeting you could not because of how they themselves organized it. Why should you be held accountable for things that could have been prevented if they tried to let go of the power?
All these rhetorical and ranting questions all support the idea that while they say you are trying to have the work revolve around you. What is really happening is that the world is currently revolving around someone else and they are afraid to let that go. These issues are only heightened family trips when the patriarchal power struggle is even more real and in friend groups. In these situations more intimate relationships are involved and even more raw emotion. These are the people who are supposed to have your back and want what is best for you but for some reason they are willing to treat you like a total stranger. Although, they should not be an exception I can put up with this cycle of non-sensical blame from my peers and strangers. However, I can not continue to allow people who I consider to be within my immediate circle of confidants to do the same and neither should you.
In addition, these people who know why you act in certain way and who know why the alternatives are more or equally important to what they are expecting you to do should also allow you to feel as if the world revolves around you. They should in fact promote you trying to view a situation using a cost benefit analysis. They should promote the idea of you considering yourself and what you need when making a decision or making a choice because after all you can not trust anyone else to do that for you, and this alone proves that.
How can we solve this problem? In the age of technology and in a time where communication instant the solutions are infinite. With apps/websites such as Doodle that allow you to poll and give schedule options to all those involved it is easier to get a fair and accurate reading of what everyones schedule truly is. Other technology such as Facebook Messenger, Text Messaging, Facetime, Email, Whatsapp, and Groupme also allow for groups even large groups to communicate and it takes 3 seconds to send a simple text with information. The way I see it is, if their is time to send me a Facebook message to join your game of Candy Crush or time to Groupme a meme there is time for you to send a reminder or an FYI text. Therefore the world is involving and naturally helping us learn to compromise and truly just communicate a little more. And now, instead of waving the white flag and taking the lose my new favorite phrase will be “the world might not revolve around me but it also does not revolve around you”. Hopefully this allows us to come to a compromise and remember that all in all the world is revolving around a giant star in our solar system and no matter how hard we try, who we hurt, and what we say that will never change.
