NMB/NMP

Abiding in Hope

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I didn’t know what that meant until quite recently. Do you? “NMB/NMP.” 

I’ve had this conversation with quite a few people whose faces make it clear that they’ve at least encountered this bunch of letters before. Letters which, as some of you likely do know, stand for these words:

NOT MY BUSINESS / NOT MY PROBLEM

My default in response to things that happen around me has never been NMB/NMP. My default has always been something closer to “Maybe I could make that better.” It might be a table out of place in the church hallway or an upside-down ice cream melting its way across a public sidewalk. Or… Or… Or...oh, how many things have elicited that response?

On a scale of 1-to-10, with 10 being “most likely,” and thinking about a huge range of settings, I’d score an 8 or a 9 on the question of “how likely is it that Lee will try to do something about that thing she just saw?” Let’s call that thing we just saw the OBSERVED PROBLEM.

On that scale, my husband might score a 2, on a good day. (He’d say the day he’s any higher than a 1 would be a bad day.) Not that he doesn’t care about things that are his business and are his problem. He has addressed plenty of those, with compassion and wisdom. 

But the truth is, he’s absolutely clear that his knowledge of an OBSERVED PROBLEM does not automatically get translated into becoming HIS PROBLEM. And before he takes even the slightest step to do something about the OBSERVED PROBLEM, he asks himself that question. Is it my business? Is it my problem?

Or, actually, because he’s quite practiced in the art of NMB/NMP, he jumps pretty directly to absolute clarity that the OBSERVED PROBLEM is not his business, and therefore not HIS PROBLEM. (Except, of course, in the rather small category of situations that in fact are his to address.) NMB/NMP. See?

I should pause here to note my observation that many of us who are churched have been taught to rather readily turn OBSERVED PROBLEMS into OUR PROBLEMS. We’ve had (and some of us have taught!) Sunday School lessons on sacrificial giving (“giving until it hurts”) and putting others’ needs before our own. It’s Matthew 25. The Good Samaritan. Bearing one another’s burdens in 1 Corinthians 12. There are plenty of places the Bible reminds us to let other people’s needs prompt a response in us. I’m glad for the ways those teachings have formed me.

Still, I’m not sure those lessons have given us guardrails for discerning wisely when to let an OBSERVED PROBLEM become OUR PROBLEM. We can’t tackle every one of the problems that we notice around us; we have finite resources, and time, and power to fix things we notice are wrong. How do we choose among them? I don’t think we’re called to live in a perpetual state of overwhelm—constantly pulled in multiple directions by the OBSERVED PROBLEMs around us. Are there principles that would help us decide which things to take on? or is it more about our mood, schedule, and whether we like the look of the person whose problem it actually is?

We could talk a long time about this question. The answers include things like boundaries and enabling and codependency and “fixing” and God’s call and claim upon our lives.

And perhaps the simplest of all the answers, as we try to figure out which OBSERVED PROBLEMS ought to prompt our response, is to remember to ask: “Is this MY problem? Is it even any of my business?” It might become those things if I choose to make it a priority and really invest myself in it. But in the meantime, saying an honest “no,” can be a faithful response to the needs and disorder around me.

I have been practicing all this, and I’m learning to claim NMB/NMP, through our recent move to a new city and my start in a different church. It has been freeing. It hasn’t made me heartless; it’s keeping me from getting enmeshed in questions I don’t need to have to answer. I can notice something that needs attention and, truly, that concept of NMB/NMP helps me keep walking, and keep focused on my actual priorities, for that moment at least. The time may come when I need to tackle it, or ask someone else what we should do about it. But for now, I can let it go. 

The shift from assuming it’s my problem to realizing it’s not is huge. I recommend it. 

Whether you take this advice, though, is…(wait for it)…NMB/NMP. 

The Rev. Lee Roorda Schott is a retired clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. "Abiding in Hope" is a spiritual support project started during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Subscribe to Abiding in Hope