Given that this father-son dance pre-exists your inclusion into the family, I’d suggest you do all you can to hold your tongue.

Stand back. Let the two people who have the difficulty identify that a problem exists. Let them handle it however they decide to face it or ignore it.

That you and your husband are happy is a bonus. I am sure you will agree that your newfound happiness comes with a history that must have been painful for at least one of these two men.

That the young man is “nice and polite” to you is a feather in all of your caps (father included). Resist the natural urge to teach the boy or to correct the boy – leave such things up to his father while you enjoy what you already have with him.

Jealousy, since you mention a Shakespeare play, is not referred to as the “Green Eyed Monster” for nothing. It can destroy a person and a family.

While the intricacies of your family are unknown to me, the vicious work of factions and jealousy are predictable. As is the “work” of any virus, a relationship virus is neither creative nor redeeming. It seeks nothing but the destruction of the host.

Broad principles:

1. Talk only about yourself and the person you are with – all talk about all others is gossip.
2. Consistently focus on the positive – a virus detests good news so express it everywhere you go.
3. Declare your stance and stay with it – announce your unwillingness to participate in the destructive patterns you see in occurring in your larger family and remove yourself, at least temporarily, from all company and conversations that violate your stated values.

There would be fewer wrecked relationships. Money would be what it is: a means to an end.

Doing what you really want is not the same as immersing yourself in some self-centered, lustful desire or living as if you are the only person on the planet.

Pursuing what you want is far more beautiful, spiritual, and holy than self-indulgence. It is discovering the hand-print of God within you and, of course, may be the toughest and scariest journey you have ever undertaken.

Not doing what you really want to do is selfish. It deprives the world of your very best contribution.

Wanting is not selfish. What distorts our lives is failing to sufficiently want. Paying part-time attention to our true calling results in a distorted parody of what we could be.

With one shot at life, it seems ridiculous to spend years ignoring God-given talents.

Ignoring the divine shape of gifts within you in order to be “practical” has to be as close to blasphemy as I have ever witnessed.

It is not your husband’s job to speak up to your in-laws simply because they are his parents. You have as much of a voice to them as their daughter-in-law. So, speak up. Tell them what you need while also being careful not to burn any bridges.

This done, I’d suggest you allow yourself to sit back and enjoy the role your in-laws play in the lives of your children, learn as much as you can from them, and resist seeing their involvement as an imposition.

Forgive me for my little aside with “think you love” because it is really impossible for authentic love and the kind of contempt you are currently revealing to come from the same source – even if they are aimed at very different people.

Surely you know, for you are well-dressed, appear well educated, and are wired to the hilt with a phone and a laptop computer – my, you are a veritable call-center on legs – that your waitress is someone you will only encounter if you come back to this restaurant.

Get up. Go somewhere else. You know you do have many choices. Just ask your phone to guide you elsewhere. Perhaps there’s an application on your phone that lists all the restaurants in town that welcome uncouth men, a place where men can yell at women with abandon. There’s got to be such places, and if there are not, perhaps you can open one.

Oddest thing was that I watched the surgery.

Yes, on two large screens and right before my eyes I watched my heart from several angles as the intervention was performed – then I slept for 18 hours.

As important and crucial as this surgery was to my living, I do not believe it is what has kept me alive.

It’s my children. It’s my brother and my sister. It’s my work. It’s this column. It’s the freedom to travel and to speak internationally, the day-to-day interactions I have with students – these are the things that keep me alive, keep me healthy, and keep me breathing.

And so I thank you.

So, yesterday, when the doctor wired me up to his machines he did not get the frown or the look of concern I anticipated. He did not say anything like, “Good thing you came in today. You are here just in time for a quadruple bypass.”

Rather, he said, “Everything looks absolutely normal. I will see you in two years.”

I heard the term “downward mobility” in 1989 from the pulpit at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Durban North. Bob Hunter, a guest preacher, used it in a sermon and the term has bugged me ever since. It has forever unsettled my thinking about pride, humility and arrogance and challenged me, not always successfully, to aspire to be “less” and not more. It is no secret that we live in a selfish and cutthroat world and, each of us gets to choose if we will be part of that culture or part of an alternative way of thinking and operating.

When I challenge my readers and myself to embrace “downward mobility” I am suggesting that:

1. Real power (helpful, redeeming power) comes through service and not only through position, rank or money.
2. Authentic influence is born out of equality, mutuality, and not out of manipulation or posturing.
3. Taking a “lesser” role can position a person to hold and wield greater influence than can be found through lording it over others. Of course not all leaders “lord it over others” but it is a rare person who can lead and remain humble.

I’d suggest you give this man absolutely no power whatsoever over plans relating to your children or to your ex-husband. Their “weird” lives within him. If you start to accommodate his peculiarities they (the peculiarities) will grow, and you will be dancing to his tune more than will be vaguely comfortable for you or anyone in your pre-established relationships.

In a healthy divorce where children are involved, former spouses see each other a lot anyway.  Leave the plans as they are and hope this man goes on his merry way.

This is good – I think.

But before it is packaged and sold and diluted and grossly misunderstood, I’d like a shot at explaining or defining it:

1. Ubuntu is a way of life. It’s a culture, a culture often misunderstood (like a lot of cultures) by those outside of it. Those who want to try something new or make a quick buck are especially prone to misunderstand it.
2. Ubuntu is not a trick. It’s not something that you can apply to see if it works and dump it if it doesn’t. Ubuntu is the embodying of generosity and hospitality and wise caution within all relationships – but it is doing so without any hidden motive.
3. Ubuntu is both seemingly selfless and seemingly selfish at one and the same time. It is embracing an understanding that none of us is capable of being all we can be without the help of others, while it is also knowing that each of us is primarily responsible for our own well-being.
4. Ubuntu embraces the power of togetherness, believing it is a more powerful way of being than is individuality. Yet, and paradoxically so, it knows the GROUP empowers the INDIVIDUAL and it is not against the success of the individual – it simply acknowledges that individual success arises out of group support.
5. It’s non-hierarchical. Living with an Ubuntu mindset it to appreciate that the best ideas and the most useful knowledge and wisdom are not the exclusive territory of the oldest, the boss, the one called leader, the one who has seniority, or those with the most education. Ubuntu treasures all people enough to hear all voices without getting sidetracked by territorial-ism, rank, pride, or arrogance.
6. Ubuntu will make a person and a community both playful and serious – and at times, to an outsider, it may appear that these things have traded places. A community (family, church, school) that understands Ubuntu knows that sometimes the best way to treat grave matters is to be playful, and the best way to be healthy is to be very playful. Again, this is not a trick – those who understand Ubuntu also know that SERIOUS is not always so, that playfulness is often the best and only healthy response to pervasive anxiety.
7. Ubuntu encourages the weaker among us but is not “pulled into” weakness as a demonstration of empathy.