Life is all about perspective so the more perspectives we can entertain the broader our consciousness in it’s ability to hold many different points of view and seek to understand the people in the many different areas of our lives.

I travel a bit. I wouldn’t say a ton but I love to explore other cultures and places. I’ve learned a lot about myself along the way. I have perspectives about people in other places and they have perspectives about me. Both are preconceived and mine are often smashed along the way.

We’ve been losing our ability to be curious and hang out in the unknown since childhood. We want to have it all figured out and we want to be right! Who do you know that sounds like that?

One of the things I do when I work with people is to help them find that in between place, that uncomfortable position where they’re beyond believing one thing but not yet settled on what they know to be true.

That’s where the magic happens!
That’s where change happens!

The bad news is that it feels like an existential crisis. When we arrive at that place we realize that we’ve been operating based off something that doesn’t fit anymore.

We all judge one another, there’s just no way around that. We have personal biases as well as cultural biases. We think certain things about other people as an automatic go-to in our need to fully understand everything in our lives.

So I have a common example of how we do this crazy thing… I drive on a regular basis. I judge the shit out of people all the time while I drive. I make up stories about who they are based off how they drive. Sometimes it’s based off ethnicity, gender, age, you name it but basically it’s my way of making people wrong based off groupings of people.

Sometimes someone won’t stop all the way at a stop sign and BAM! they’ve just become a villain of massive proportions. They weren’t raised right, they’re selfish, and eat their young. The problem is that it gets me all worked up and ruins all of those minutes while I’m doing it and often for a fair bit of time afterwards too. Not only that I’m sending out all these bad vibes that the world is fucked and it’s all falling apart. Jeez?! What am I doing?

Here’s where the plot thickens… I drive like an asshole sometimes too. When I drive like an asshole I have all these reasons (excuses) why I’m justified to do what I’m doing. I’m in a hurry and where I’m going and what I’m doing is important. You know, I’m a good person doing good in the world. We do this all the time in every area of our lives.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be paying attention to the problems in the world and I’m not saying that everyone is a good person that needs a break. I’m talking about how I/you/we can live a completely different life by not assuming that people are doing things that make them human because they’re flawed and we do them because of some situational reason.

You have some work to do. How are you facing that work?

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