We live in an imperfect and impermanent world.
We live in an imperfect and impermanent world. We can sit and complain about the way
the world is and magnify the suffering by coddling an underlying belief that somehow, we should be exempt from the normal difficulties of living. Sadly, our world is imperfect and irresponsible people continually prove this to us.
The people we cherish will occasionally leave us. Those we trust will occasionally betray
us. The things we hope for and plan for will not always materialize. There will be times
when we suffer hurts and will be in need of healing. These are some of the givens of our lives.
The purpose of this page is not to continually provide material to beat ourselves up with,
or to place unreasonable expectations upon the behavior of others. There is no expectation that we will incorporate all the elements of healthy living. The elements of healthy living are very complex and numerous.
We all are given the task to slowly and intricately weave them together in the formation of our lives. Often we are tempted when we encounter a new healthy philosophy, or healthy way of thinking to state, "Wouldn't it be nice, if everyone thought like this?" We are tempted to process new insights with how they would affect us, if our partner implemented them instead of mindfully checking our own lives to see, how we could better implement it into
our own lives.
Of course it would be nice, if our partners were perfect, and if everyone was compassionate. But this projection of healthy thoughts and behaviors on others as a way, they should act and distracts us from the work of implementing, and refining the skill for ourselves.
We can affect the world. We can help some of these skills be implemented by our partners. But the process of change comes from the change in us first. If we do not recognize the areas in our life that we can improve upon, the hope of our partners changing is nothing
but a powerless wish. No amount of control or manipulation will bring about the changes
we desire in them.
Our dissatisfaction with their current state of being will slowly drive a wedge in between us and them. The environment for growth will be poisoned and resentment will soon take hold. Our fears of being abandoned will soon flavor all our conflicts with antagonism, character assault, and eventually emotional protecting separation.
The flow of hatred and indifference in the world does not change from wishing others would change. True and lasting change to the way the world flows come from building a damn,
one small rock of kindness at a time. The change which we have to offer the world is ourselves.
We are responsible for our own actions. We can begin to flourish our relationships a little brighter. We can touch a few lives, as we break out our beautiful set of dispositions towards others. Some may respond positively to our changes and begin to do implement on some
of the changes themselves, others may not respond in a positive manner at all.
Change is very frightening to some, whether it be their own personal changes, or the changes of someone, they are dependent upon. Our responsibility still remains with ourselves and not dependent upon, how others respond to our healthy changes. It starts with being true to ourselves before; we can have others be true to us. It ends, when others take us for granted, and irresponsibly destroys the relationship for selfish reason.
Life-Changing Decisions by Author Julia G. Smith
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