Less is more. We all know the saying. It has been transformed into a platitude by advertisers and TV shows and even corporate American as it right-sizes people out of their livelihoods (“We’ll have to learn to do more with less around here.”). But is less really more? And if so, is the opposite true? Is more actually less?
Questions like this may be more important than you think.” Get more here: The Minimalists | More Is Less?.
Thoughts on How To Be A Dad
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -Mark Twain
Every mother generally hopes that her daughter will snag a better husband than she managed to, but she’s certain that her boy will never get as great a wife as his father did. -Anonymous
The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat. -Robert Frost
A father is a banker provided by nature. – French Proverb
When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, ‘Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?’ He answered, ‘If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.’ – Jerry Lewis
Small boy’s definition of Father’s Day: It’s just like Mother’s Day only you don’t spend so much. – Anonymous
When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry. -Jewish Proverb
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted. -Voltaire
My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. -Clarence B. Kelland
It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him. -Mark Twain
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.” “We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys.” -Harmon Killebrew
One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters. – George Herbert
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.-Robert Frost
Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. – Red Buttons
It’s a terrible thing to raise your own to disown you -Sippican Cottage
Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher’s mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. -Jimmy Piersall
My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic. – Spike Milligan” via Sippican Cottage: How To Be A Dad.
Surrender
Melody Beattie writes:
Master the lessons of your present circumstances.
We do not move forward by resisting what is undesirable in our life today. We move forward, we grow, we change by acceptance.
Avoidance is not the key; surrender opens the door.
Listen to this truth: We are each in our present circumstances for a reason. There is a lesson, a valuable lesson that must be learned before we can move forward.
Something important is being worked out in us, and in those around us. We may not be able to identify it today; but we can know that it is important. We can know it is good.
Overcome not by force, overcome by surrender. The battle is fought, and won, inside ourselves. We must go through it until we learn, until we accept, until we become grateful, until we are set free.
Today, I will be open to the lessons of my present circumstances. I do not have to label, know, or understand what I’m learning; I will see clearly in time. For today, trust and gratitude are sufficient.
Loving Ourselves Unconditionally
But most of all? You deserve it from YOURSELF! Melody Beattie writes:
Love yourself into health and a good life of your own.
Love yourself into relationships that work for you and the other person. Love yourself into peace, happiness, joy, success, and contentment.
Love yourself into all that you always wanted. We can stop treating ourselves the way others treated us, if they behaved in a less than healthy, desirable way. If we have learned to see ourselves critically, conditionally, and in a diminishing and punishing way, it’s time to stop. Other people treated us that way, but it’s even worse to treat ourselves that way now.
Loving ourselves may seem foreign, even foolish at times. People may accuse us of being selfish. We don’t have to believe them.
People who love themselves are truly able to love others and let others love them. People who love themselves and hold themselves in high esteem are those who give the most, contribute the most, love the most.
How do we love ourselves? By forcing it at first. By faking it if necessary. By “acting as if.” By working as hard at loving and liking ourselves as we have at not liking ourselves.
Explore what it means to love yourself.
Do things for yourself that reflect compassionate, nurturing, self-love.
Embrace and love all of yourself — past, present, and future. Forgive yourself quickly and as often as necessary. Encourage yourself. Tell yourself good things about yourself.
If we think and believe negative ideas, get them out in the open quickly and honestly, so we can replace those beliefs with better ones.
Pat yourself on the back when necessary. Discipline yourself when necessary. Ask for help, for time; ask for what you need.
Sometimes, give yourself treats. Do not treat yourself like a pack mule, always pushing and driving harder. Learn to be good to yourself. Choose behaviors with preferable consequences — treating yourself well is one.
Learn to stop your pain, even when that means making difficult decisions. Do not unnecessarily deprive yourself. Sometimes, give yourself what you want, just because you want it.
Stop explaining and justifying yourself. When you make mistakes, let them go. We learn, we grow, and we learn some more. And through it all, we love ourselves.
We work at it, then work at it some more. One day we’ll wake up, look in the mirror, and find that loving ourselves has become habitual. We’re now living with a person who gives and receives love, because that person loves him- or herself. Self-love will take hold and become a guiding force in our life.
Today, I will work at loving myself. I will work as hard at loving myself as I have at not liking myself. Help me let go of self-hate and behaviors that reflect not liking myself. Help me replace those with behaviors that reflect self-love. Today, God, help me hold myself in high self-esteem. Help me know I’m lovable and capable of giving and receiving love.” via June 16: Loving Ourselves Unconditionally.
Ending an argument
This is supposed to be funny. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what Nietszche said “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” For some reason, this has really helped me end a lot of arguments before they even start. The Meta Picture via Ending an argument like a sir….
Father’s Day Without My Dad
An atypical — but powerful — Father’s Day story with a lesson from Rhonda Britten:
The last time I saw my dad was on Father’s Day in 1975. It was rainy and cold much like most June days in the U.P., short for Upper Peninsula. I grew up in the part of Michigan that looks like the mouth of the wolf. The wolf being Lake Superior. The mouth being the Keweenaw Peninsula, or the Copper Country.
It’s a little-known fact that more millionaires were made during the copper rush of the U.P. than the gold rush in California. But I digress — as I tend to do when I am talking about my father.
You see, the last time I saw my father, he had a rifle in his hand and he was raging at my mother, bullets flying. When all was said and done, both my parents lay dead by my father’s hand and I was the only witness, the one left standing.
Most people assume I hate my father. Or worse, that I am glad he’s dead. I feel neither.
You see, I have forgiven him for that horrid act and that forgiveness has softened my heart and turned into love. Yes, I love my father.
He has taught me more about love than anyone, because he has taught me everything about fear.
The first thing you read when you crack open my book, Fearless Living, is this:
Fear is a killer.
It kills hopes.
It kills dreams.
It kills careers.
It kills relationships.
In a flash, it killed my parents.
It almost killed me.
How is it killing you?
I know this because of my father. He killed because he was afraid of the emotions he couldn’t control. He stewed when he was hurt. He blamed and attacked when there was an inkling of embarrassment or shame. Humiliation? He’d rather die.
After my mother’s announcement that she was leaving him after enduring his jealous rages, infidelities and abuse for over two decades — they were buried on what would have been their 20th wedding anniversary — he put two bullet holes into her while repeating over and over again, “This is your fault. You made me do this. This is your fault.” He was a victim until the bitter end.
My father killed (and died) because he was afraid. Afraid to lose, afraid to feel, afraid to be human.
This is why fear has become my specialty, my obsession. I am not going to let fear decide my life, my future, my fate. It isn’t going to tell me what to do, or convince me to blame the ones I love how wrong they are, or suck one ounce of passion out of me. No siree.
I was a witness to the horror of a life lived in fear.
But fear is so subtle, so seductive, so invisible, I have had to learn all of its tricks to stop myself from following the easy path of a fear-driven life. That’s what I have done for the past decade plus. I have devoted my life to understanding how fear works, learning how to process it in a healthy, loving way and master it so I can live the life my father was afraid to.
So here I stand. A daughter of a murderer. A daughter of a man who lived in fear. A daughter of a man who taught her how to love.
My father lived in fear and died in fear. I’m not going to do the same. I choose love. I know he’d be proud.” via Rhonda Britten: Father’s Day Without My Dad.
The best love story…
The Meta Picture via The best love story….
Letting the Cycles Flow
Melody Beattie writes:
Life is cyclical, not static. Our relationships benefit when we allow them to follow their own natural cycles.
Like the tide ebbs and flows, so do the cycles in relationships. We have periods of closeness and periods of distance. We have times of coming together and times of separating to work on individual issues.
We have times of love and joy, and times of anger.
Sometimes, the dimensions of relationships change as we go through changes. Sometimes, life brings us new friends or a new loved one to teach us the next lesson.
That does not mean the old friend disappears forever. It means we have entered a new cycle.
We do not have to control the course of our relationships, whether these be friendships or love relationships. We do not have to satisfy our need to control by imposing a static form on relationships.
Let it flow. Be open to the cycles. Love will not disappear. The bond between friends will not sever. Things do not remain the same forever, especially when we are growing and changing at such a rapid pace.
Trust the flow. Take care of yourself, but be willing to let people go. Hanging on to them too tightly will make them disappear.
The old adage about love still holds true: “If it’s meant to be, it will be. And if you love someone, let them go. If they come back to you, the love is yours.”
Today, I accept the cyclical nature of life and relationships. I will strive to go with the flow. I will strive for harmony with my own needs and the needs of the other person.” via June 15: Letting the Cycles Flow.
Related articles
- Hanging on to Old Relationships (toddlohenry.com)
- Sadness (toddlohenry.com)
- Affirm Yourself… (toddlohenry.com)
- Loving Ourselves Unconditionally (toddlohenry.com)
- Rise to the Occasion (toddlohenry.com)
- On attachments… (toddlohenry.com)
- Sadness (toddlohenry.com)
- …on Taking One Day at a Time (toddlohenry.com)
- “That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It” – An Interview with Melody Beattie (wheretheclientis.com)
3 Ways To Find the Truth—About Yourself
Michael Hyatt writes:
Many of us have a love/hate relationship with truth. We tell ourselves we want to know the truth, but we’re very selective about the kind of truth we seek. About others, yes—and usually about world events and situations that impact us directly, but we are less receptive to revelations about ourselves.
In fact, self-knowledge is a two-edged sword because we might find out something about ourselves that we would rather not know. We’ve carefully packaged ourselves to look and act in a manner that ensures success in the world. Our ego has dressed us up for so long that many of us don’t even know how to begin to peel back the layers of illusion to expose cold, hard facts about ourselves.” Get more here: 3 Ways To Find the Truth—About Yourself | Michael Hyatt.
5 Ways to Let Go of Limited Thinking for a Limitless Life
Daniel Miller writes:
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~Albert Einstein.
As so often happens when I go on vacation, valuable insights come in unexpected ways. It happened again during a recent fly-fishing trip (through Fly Fishing for the Mind) with my adult son, Brandon, to the Sian Ka’an Biosphere, a government protected nature and wildlife reserve at the eastern tip of Mexico.
I got in touch with a major difference in Brandon’s and my thought patterns. Brandon thinks expansively about life’s possibilities—particularly those involving fun and adventure. His typical mind-set is “Let’s do it” and “This will be a lot of fun.”
I, on the other hand, tend to think restrictively, like “If we do this, then we can’t do that” and “That’s not what’s been planned.”
Had I followed my limited thinking during the trip, I would have missed out on some great fun and highly rewarding experiences. Let me share two of them with you.” Get more here: 5 Ways to Let Go of Limited Thinking for a Limitless Life | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.
I just had to share that juicy Einstein quote with you!
Looking for something to do
Jon Swanson writes:
Time to talk about strengths. The capacities that we have to do things.
For example, I find it easy to see the connections between things that no one else sees. Sometimes this gets me in trouble. Sometimes people think I’m merely being silly. But sometimes these connections look like creativity. Sometimes people say “I never thought of it that way.”
That’s a strength of mine. It’s not the best strength or my only strength. It’s not something that other people need to desire. In fact, why do you need it if I have it? What you could say is, “What can Jon and I do together, if he can see odd connections and I can actually implement them?” Because I am a lousy implementer.
You may be able to see a strength of mine better than you can see your own strengths. What we do from our strengths, we don’t think of as a strength, because it is just how we are. So we believe we don’t have any strengths, nothing that we are capable of, nothing that God can use for anything significant. We just have what we do.
It’s worth thinking carefully and seriously to discover what our strengths are.
The first part of that thinking is to decide that it’s possible that God has created us with capacities. Because you know that you are thinking “I have no strengths” or “God’s got nothing I can use.” But didn’t the kid have fish and bread? 15,000 people fed. Didn’t David know how to write little poems? The book of Psalms. Didn’t Barnabas know how to encourage people? Paul. Didn’t Moses know how to lead sheep through the desert? Deliverer.
We know the end of the stories. They just had what they did.
Tomorrow I’ll have some strength finding questions.” via Looking for something to do..
Enjoyment
Melody Beattie writes:
Life is not to be endured; life is to be enjoyed and embraced.
The belief that we must square our shoulders and get through a meager, deprived existence for far-off “rewards in Heaven” is a codependent belief.
Yes, most of us still have times when life will be stressful and challenge our endurance skills. But in recovery, were learning to live, to enjoy our life, and handle situations as they come.
Our survival skills have served us well. They have gotten us through difficult times — as children and adults. Our ability to freeze feelings, deny problems, deprive ourselves, and cope with stress has helped us get where we are today. But we’re safe now. We’re learning to do more than survive. We can let go of unhealthy survival behaviors. We’re learning new, better ways to protect and care for ourselves. We’re free to feel our feelings, identify and solve problems, and give ourselves the best. We’re free to open up and come alive.
Today, I will let go of my unhealthy endurance and survival skills. I will choose a new mode of living, one that allows me to be alive and enjoy the adventure.” via June 14: Enjoyment.
Related articles
- Codepedence is not just an issue for partners of addicts (toddlohenry.com)
- Basics of Codependency (toddlohenry.com)
- Choices (toddlohenry.com)
- Fear & Codependency (toddlohenry.com)
- Are You Making Someone Else Your Higher Power? (toddlohenry.com)
- Letting Go of Self Doubt (toddlohenry.com)
- Why does life have to be so hard? (toddlohenry.com)
- Sadness (toddlohenry.com)
The Key To Healing It Is Feeling It; Embrace All Your Feelings As A Gift!
The challenge with curation is often finding the best 3 paragraphs to share. Kute Blackson’s post is so good today that I just grabbed the whole think. Sorry, Kute – hope you don’t mind…
All of your feelings are a gift.
Yet we often judge feelings as good or bad. We often try to eliminate the bad ones and feel only the good ones. However, in doing so, you end up disconnecting from the full range of your heart, self-expression and power.
To the degree that you suppress what you might think of as the negative feelings is to the degree that you also disconnect from your capacity to fully experience the positive feelings.
Ultimately, there are no good or bad feelings. Feelings are just energy moving through your body. Every feeling is a signal, which if you pay attention to will point you in the direction of something that you actually need to deal with, a part of you that needs loving compassion or needs to be released. Even the feelings you label as bad are simply a signal. They are like a fire alarm trying to get you to pay attention to a part of yourself. If you don’t listen, the signal gets louder and louder until you do. If you keep suppressing, the feelings end up coming out anyway most likely in a not so gracious way (AKA -You lose it, or have a meltdown and explode)!
When you suppress your authentic feelings, those feelings simply remain incomplete buried deep within you. You often end up recreating situations and relationships in your life based on those old incomplete feelings, as there is a deep impulse within us to complete what is incomplete.
What you might call “bad” feelings show you the parts of yourself that need your love and healing. Healing is applying love to the parts of yourself that are hurting. When you hold a space of compassion for yourself and the full range of your feelings without any judgment, this compassion has a transformative effect.
As children we learn to disconnect from our authentic feelings. We disconnect as a way to avoid pain, hurt, rejection, shame etc. And it becomes a survival mechanism in order to function and protect ourselves. That way of being may have “worked” for us as children to survive, but take this way of being into our adulthood and end up recreating those same incomplete childhood patterns over and over, it only creates suffering.
What feelings are you suppressing?
What feelings are you disconnecting from?
What feelings are you afraid of feeling and acknowledging within your self?
Take an honest look.
The feelings that you suppress, or are unwilling to acknowledge and embrace, will run you!
The feelings that you are unable to have will end up having you.
When you suppress your real feelings, whether anger, sadness or hurt – over time, you might end up finding yourself feeling depressed, heavy, irritated and lacking aliveness. The heaviness is a sign that you are suppressing and ends up clouding your ability to now feel joy in the present moment.
No feelings last forever. But we are sometimes afraid to feel the feelings we think are bad because we are worried we will stay stuck there. Know this: all feelings pass. None are permanent. To the degree you can feel them, you will let them go and feel more alive.
So do not resist the negative feelings, feel them fully with total awareness whilst connecting to the sensations in your body. They will move through you and dissolve.
Similarly, no positive feelings will last forever either. So when you feel a positive feeling, simply feel it fully with total awareness, without trying to make it stay, and you might find yourself experiencing it longer. What often happens is in an effort to keep the “good” feelings we try to make it stay, which creates a contraction. In doing so we start to lose the positive feeling even more quickly!
When you are willing to embrace and love the dark in you, you are then able to more fully embrace your light. However, let me be clear, it is NOT about wallowing in your negativity and dark feelings using that as an excuse. Feeling authentically isn’t wallowing or indulging. It is simply about acknowledging and integrating what your feelings have to share with you and allowing them to move through you in a healthy way.
Ultimately you are not your feelings, whether good or bad. You are beyond them all. Your relationship with your feelings is as important as the feelings themselves. No need to be afraid or run away from them.
Your feelings are a portal into a deeper dimension of yourself and thus a deeper dimension of your own Divinity and freedom.
Your feelings are a gift. Sometimes you just need to patiently unwrap them, so you can find the important message inside.
When you feel it, you heal it.
And when you heal it, you can be more of the real you that you are meant to be.
It is time.
Love. Now.
Source: The Key To Healing It Is Feeling It…Embrace All Your Feelings As A Gift!
Disappointed Someone? It’s Okay. Get Over It.
“When we are the one responsible behind disappointment, we find ourselves poked by both ends of a double-edged sword – on the one side wounded by disappointment in ourselves, and the other traumatized with guilt towards the party affected.
But like toothaches and awkward puberty, we have to accept the fact that we are all bound to the possibility of disappointment, be it by ourselves, family, friends or co-workers; or by circumstances beyond our control, such as bad timing or a chain of events that eventually domino-crumble down our path.
Disappointment is an essential part of our growth and self-discovery, and despite being uncomfortable and hurtful, teaches us to trust ourselves, recognize our strengths and weaknesses, and let go of our hold on perfection.
By actively avoiding disappointment onto others, sometimes we set ourselves up for more failure and pain instead of less, or none at all.
We understand that like people, disappointment comes in many different shapes and sizes. While we don’t reproach the remorse that comes with our wrongdoing (hey, that’s a sign of empathy, right?), we’re definitely not down with the idea of indulging in continuous self-pity over a missed deadline or a forgotten detail.
So here are some tips you can apply in your personal or work life on how to overcome the emotional self-flagellation that comes with having disappointed someone.” Get more here: Disappointed Someone? It’s Okay. Get Over It..
Hanging on to Old Relationships
More Melody Beattie:
“We want to travel baggage-free on this journey. It makes the trip easier.
Some of the baggage we can let go of is lingering feelings and unfinished business with past relationships: anger; resentments; feelings of victimization, hurt, or longing.
If we have not put closure on a relationship, if we cannot walk away in peace, we have not yet learned our lesson. That may mean we will have to have another go-around with that lesson before we are ready to move on.
We may want to do a Fourth Step (a written inventory of our relationships) and a Fifth Step (an admission of our wrongs). What feelings did we leave with in a particular relationship? Are we still carrying those feelings around? Do we want the heaviness and impact of that baggage on our behavior today?
Are we still feeling victimized, rejected, or bitter about something that happened two, five, ten, or even twenty years ago?
It may be time to let it go. It may be time to open ourselves to the true lesson from that experience. It may be time to put past relationships to rest, so we are free to go on to new, more rewarding experiences.
We can choose to live in the past, or we can choose to finish our old business from the past and open ourselves to the beauty of today.
Let go of your baggage from past relationships.
Today, I will open myself to the cleansing and healing process that will put closure on yesterday and open me to the best today, and tomorrow, has to offer in my relationships.” Source: Hanging on to Old Relationships
Related articles
- Choices (toddlohenry.com)
- Sadness (toddlohenry.com)
- Living Our Lives (toddlohenry.com)
- Codepedence is not just an issue for partners of addicts (toddlohenry.com)
- Letting Go of Self Doubt (toddlohenry.com)
- Rise to the Occasion (toddlohenry.com)
Intelligence Follows the Wheel
I ran across some interesting research the other day that I wanted to take a few moments to share here. For years scientists have known that giving mice “enriched” environments makes the mice smarter. They would put in colorful toys, tunnels, exercise wheels, etc. and mice who lived in the “enriched” environments performed better on tests than the mice in the non-enriched cages. Finally some scientists started trying to figure out exactly what it was in the enriched environment’s was making the mice smart.
It turned out it wasn’t the colorful balls or toys. it all came down to the exercise wheel. Even though the mice loved the toys the thing that made them smart was running on the wheel. The intelligence followed the exercise wheel–not the toys.
This has some interesting implications for people who want to perform at their peak mental capabilities. Maybe exercise is the one of the best ways to invest your time in getting smarter.” via Intelligence Follows the Wheel | Productivity501.
Moving Forward
Melody Beattie writes:
Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don’t have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.
Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don’t need to suffer with them.
It doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck. The potential for helping others is far greater when we detach, work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.
Changing ourselves, allowing ourselves to grow while others seek their own path, is how we have the most beneficial impact on people we love. We’re accountable for ourselves. They’re accountable for themselves. We let them go, and let ourselves grow.
Today, I will affirm that it is my right to grow and change, even though someone I love may not be growing and changing alongside me.
Related articles
- Sadness (toddlohenry.com)
- Codepedence is not just an issue for partners of addicts (toddlohenry.com)
- …on Control (toddlohenry.com)
- Go easy (toddlohenry.com)
- “That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It” – An Interview with Melody Beattie (wheretheclientis.com)
- Loving Ourselves Unconditionally (toddlohenry.com)
- Are You Making Someone Else Your Higher Power? (toddlohenry.com)
- Fear & Codependency (toddlohenry.com)
- …on feeling good (toddlohenry.com)
How to Release Shame and Love All of You
From the Tiny Buddha blog:
“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” African Proverb.
If you’ve had any experiences where you had to keep your truth quiet, particularly as a child, it’s time to reclaim your truth and value its power. By doing so, you will release energy, old shame, and subconscious blocks that may now be holding you back from living your life to the fullest.
It could be that you had lots of family secrets that your parents made sure you told no one about (which creates shame), or it could be you were bullied and felt unable to confide in anyone about it.
There are many circumstances where we have our truth kept locked in, and unintentionally we create shame around our truths. If you feel unable to speak your truth, then you feel shame. It’s nature’s law.
When we become shameful of our truths, we end up cutting off, discrediting, and devaluing a hugely important chunk of who we are and how we show up in the world.” Get more here: How to Release Shame and Love All of You | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.
3 Steps to Embrace Being Confronted
It’s never fun or easy being confronted. For many, our instinct is to deny, defend, or deflect what is being put before us. At Fierce, we believe confrontation conversations are healthy and can be rewarding.However, it does take skill and practice to ensure the conversation is productive and moving the relationship forward.Below are three tips to help you achieve this.” Get more here: 3 Steps to Embrace Being Confronted- Fierce, Inc. – Fierce Leadership Blog – Fierce, Inc..
On adversity…
Anderson Layman’s Blog via Carroll and Uchtdorf on adversity………...
The Freedom of Not Needing To Be Right
Hannah Eagle writes:
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Nietzsche.
Yesterday I drove my mother and father to the VA hospital in Albuquerque for a doctor’s appointment. I had never been to a VA hospital before. I guess I should have expected the numbers of crutches and canes, armless and legless veterans, young and weathered faces alike.
I was personally witnessing the costs endured when humans war against each other.
“Isn’t it odd,” I said to my mother, “that human beings war with each other?”
Why in the world do we do that?
Then I considered the ways in which we war on an interpersonal level. We humans war to varying degrees with our partners, our friends, our bosses, our co-workers, our siblings, our parents—pretty much all in the name of our need to be “right” or the need not to be wrong.
We war over ideas and beliefs that we often have never questioned. These include ideas from our upbringings, our religions, our scars and wounds, and our existential need to identify ourselves in some way.
How early did we lose our childlike wonder? When did we lose that innocent state in which we did not judge others, nor need to be “right”—when we saw the best in everything and everyone, and when it did not matter that someone was Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, republican, democrat, omnivorous, vegetarian, gay, or of a different race?
When I observe my 10-year-old grandson, he appears to have no tendency to judge other people, not yet anyway. He has no need to diminish others, nor does he feel threatened by them.
Would we, as children, have told lies about someone just because we wanted to win an election? Would we have been dismissive or even cruel to someone because they were of another race or religion? I don’t think so.
As little children we only cared that we were loved. And we were still curious about everything.
Somewhere along the way we lose our innocence and start to judge others. This becomes a primary source of our social anxiety and the undermining of our self-esteem, because if we are judging others. we fear that we are also being judged.
Could we perhaps untangle and re-do ourselves? Could we resist closing ourselves off with dogma or beliefs, prejudice, and rules? Could we allow ourselves the freedom of not knowing and reclaim our curiosity?
A beautiful YouTube called We Love You Iran & Israel, depicts an Israeli man reaching out to Iranian people. He says, “Our countries are talking war. In order to go to war . . . I have to hate you. I don’t hate you. I don’t even know you. No Iranian has ever done me harm. I have only met one Iranian in a museum in Paris. Nice dude.”
Reality is malleable. The reality, which we have imposed upon ourselves or had planted in our heads by others to make us feel safe, is also the reality that keeps us from really appreciating our own humanness and really loving other human beings—those beings who are more like us than we realize, even if we don’t know them.
Bright, shiny objects! 
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