My Question of the Day: As part of a program at work and/or school (that will either earn you extra credit for a class in which you’re really struggling and/or give you an advantage for a promotion at work) you decide to participate in the school’s/company’s program of partnering with the local elder care facility to be a companion to an elder who doesn’t get any/many visitors. Even though you would rather be doing anything else, you are faithful to the mission and always show up when you say you’ll show up and you’re pleasant, engaging and willing to do whatever your elder asks of you.

After almost a year of participating in the program, you receive a letter saying that your elder has passed away, and his/her lawyer requests that you come to his/her office on a specified date at a specified time for the reading of the elder’s will, which includes you. When you show up for the reading of the will, you are shocked when the lawyer introduces you to the elder’s four adult children, none of whom the elder ever spoke of and none of whom ever visited while you knew the elder.

The lawyer reads the will. The elder has excluded all of his/her children and left you his/her entire multi-million-dollar estate to thank you for your time and kindness. The four adult children explode with anger and promise they are going to fight the validity of the will, which you know will cause the entire estate to be tied up in litigation for months, maybe years. What do you do?

RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

The Question: You’ve got a ticket to the hottest concert to hit your town in at least three decades. You paid top dollar to be front row and center. Your closest friend calls, says s/he has an emergency but can’t talk about it over the phone and asks you to come by. What do you do?

My 2 Cents: If this is a close friend, s/he is probably aware that I’m going to the hottest concert to hit my town in at least three decades. This would be something that I would share with a close friend. If s/he is calling me on the night of the concert, I would first remind him/her about the concert and what I invested to participate. If s/he still insisted that the emergency couldn’t wait, I’d alter my plans and go see about my friend. People who know me very well, and whom I actually call and believe are true, authentic, genuine friends, wouldn’t ask me to make such a sacrifice if they didn’t believe it was a true emergency in their life.

I think it’s important to keep in mind, in a situation like this, that perception is power. It doesn’t matter whether I believe it’s an emergency or not. I may get there, hear his/her story and in my mind wonder why s/he is freaking out over the thing. However, if s/he perceives the thing is an emergency, I should deal with the situation from my friend’s perspective, not my own. Even if I believe s/he’s being irrational, melodramatic, unreasonable, whatever, I should try to find words to bring him/her back to the reality of the situation and try to even out his/her perspective about what’s really going on. I may or may not be able to do that, but more important than whatever else I do, I should give my best effort to make the situation better for my friend, not worse. If that means calling in outside help and turning the issue over to them, that might be the only way to get my friend through his/her crisis. The bottom line, though, is that I need to have the compassion to be willing to deal what my friend from his/her perception of the situation, not from my own reality.

As some of you said, I do hope we can resolve or at least deal with enough of the issue so that I can make part of the hottest concert to hit my town in at least three decades, but there’s no doubt that my friend must come before a social event if I truly calling myself a friend.

———-

Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

———-

Speaklife2 You say, come on, let’s talk on the way to the concert, lol…

xsashagirl I would go to help my friend & pray that I finish in time enough to catch the show.

PROTECTED TWEETER I TELL MY FRIEND 2GET A TWITTA ACCNT AND SEND ME TWEET LMAO

EpicView_SP If the concert is like that, he/she would have to tell me what the issue is. If we’re friends, he/she would tell me up front.

Grimsta2003 it better be a real emergency. No jailed folks, no pickups. Either dead person or severely injured. No relationship probs eithr

NightShade10 certainly go speak to my friend who is obviously in need of me – probably talk on the way to the concert LoL

PROTECTED TWEETER IMHO: Not sure I understand the question, but here’s an answer, I don’t go to hot concerts anymore. Why?

coffeesassy I would go see about my friend. No big decision here.

DerekIsNormal “Baby, I understand your emergency, but I can’t come. I have my phone on me, keep me updated.”

PROTECTED TWEETER good one! My BEST friend needs me, I would go see my friend…concerts rarely start on time anyway. I love my bestie.

MuataAdebamgbe go to the concert and go over when it’s over

sunshine625 Go 2 friend unless she’s a drama queen then I’m going 2 concert

ImageSavvy Talk about it. We are close friends so we both need to understand that there is something big going in each of our lives!

Pettra88 I’d go to the concert then right to her house…if that’s not soon enough I’d tell her to meet me at the venue.

cjsmom06 I would go take care of my friend. The concert will be on DVD eventually if it is truly that hot! Friends come first

LadyJay91 concerts and events come & go but true friends are like rare gems.

brijh I explain to her my situation & offer to send someone in my place. Now, this will depend on life & death situation….

jluntzreport I would have to go see what is wrong. I would not be able to enjoy myself wondering what the emergency was

Hadji4ever I go rush 2 be by my friend’s side. If it wasn’t an emergency my friend would’ve elaborated on the phone.

atane I’d go see me my friend. I would not abandon a friend in need because of a concert.

TankaBar_JasonD Even better you can’t hear your phone over the concert to answer it till it is over.

TankaBar_JasonD wait till the concert gets lame then see what the problem is more then likely it is not an emergency, tell them where your at.

PROTECTED TWEETER whew. chile i’m going 2 the concert, lol. i’d have 2 tell my friend that we’d get together the next day

PROTECTED TWEETER I immediately drop everything and go ‘to the rescue’, and PRAY it’s worth it!

PROTECTED TWEETER explain the situation&ask if it can wait…if not I’d rush so I could try to catch at least part of the concert

Krissy90220 I wld go to the concert. I’ve had too many drama-mergencies…and they all start “…but I can’t talk over the phone”

md20737 I would tell her it aint no emergency if you cant tell me on the phone now whats the problem lol

ibster Say “Look, this had better not be BS that can wait til after the concert. I lose these tickets cos of D R A M A & we’re done.”

———-

The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments to the original post by clicking here.