Making Demands (Of Yourself)

Our world and our lives are full of people who make demands. Whether it is an aggrieved party demanding political or social justice, a spoiled child or ignored lover demanding attention, or a boss demanding you work overtime, we are all familiar with the tone and the tenor of a demand. Demands and the demanding not only have a sound. Demands and the demanding also have a look—the furrowed brow, the narrowed eye, the twisted lip, and the pinched smile. Demands and the demanding not only have a sound and a look, they also have a feel. Instinctively, we know when someone has disguised a demand as a question or as an innocent or offhanded remark. Our world and our lives are full of people who make demands.

The word “demand” has been variously defined as to “ask for with proper authority; to claim as a right; or to require as just, proper, or necessary.” If those definitions are correct, then some of the demands that we encounter are absolutely hilarious—because many of the demands that are made of us are made without proper authority, and are neither just, proper, or necessary. One of my mentors used to say that you shouldn’t make demands until you’re in demand—meaning that you should make sure that you posses something of value that someone wants or needs before you get all “demandy.”  LOL. (I made that word up).

As I pondered the nature, variety and frequency of the demands that dot the landscape of our lives, it occurred to me that our world would be so much better if more of us were as demanding of ourselves as we are of other people. In fact, there may be an inverse relationship in effect here: perhaps the more we demand of ourselves, perhaps the less demanding we will be (or will need to be of others).

This is one lesson that greets us in one of saddest stories in one of the storied sections of scripture. Alan Stringfellow has written that the theme of Second Samuel is how “tragedy is turned to triumph through sin.” The book recounts the final decades of King David. As a teenager, David walked into a valley, defeated a giant, walked into history, and then walked into our hearts. But his early victories were marred by a terrible mistake in his later years, and he spent the rest of his life dealing with its aftermath. David’s own son launches a rebellion against him. The rebellion is unsuccessful, and Absalom is killed. Afterwards, a young man named Ahimaaz begs to deliver the tragic news to David, although he was not even on the battlefield and therefore could not even file a complete report of what occured! 2 Samuel 18:22-24 tells us what happenned next:

But Ahimaaz continued to plead with Joab, “Whatever happens, please let me go, too.”“Why should you go, my son?” Joab replied. “There will be no reward for your news.” Yes, but let me go anyway,” he begged. Joab finally said, “All right, go ahead.” So Ahimaaz took the less demanding route by way of the plain and ran…

That phrase “he took the less demanding route” grabbed me by the throat. Although Ahimazz hadn’t see anything, and really couldn’t say anything, he still wanted to go. Interestingly, the path that he took to his destination is also a description of his character. Ahimaaz took the “less demanding route.” In the end, his news was not received, nor were his services rewarded. When he arrived, Ahimazz was told to “step aside.”

Ahimaaz is not the first or the last person who has adopted that strategy. Taking the less demanding route is an infection that continues to spread at an alarming rate. When it comes to our expectations of others, we are full of demands. But when it is our time to committ, invest, sacrifice, or prepare, we prefer to take the less demanding route. In his book Tribes, Sebastian Younger has written that one of the great calamities of our day is that we have loss the capacity to make great demands of our ourselves. How, he puzzles, can we expect to be courageous when nothing is asked of us and we ask nothing of ourselves?

Stop talking the less demanding route.

Try making fewer demands of others.  Make more demands on yourself.  And you may find that the harder you are on yourself, the easier you will be on others.