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What happens next?

19 Apr

What would you do if someone unfairly and maliciously insulted you in front of your friends? What would you do if someone took credit for your idea at work? What would you do if someone you loved hurt you to serve themselves? What would you do if someone lied to you and caused you to lose something you valued? What would you do if you discovered that a friend or loved one betrayed you?

All of these scenarios could happen to you. Some of them may have already happened to you. Unfortunately, we can’t control any choices other people make. We can’t control what they do or don’t do. We can’t control what happens to us as a result of those choices. When it comes to dealing with others, if they choose to hurt us, lie to us, betray us – we really can’t do anything to stop them. They may choose to do whatever they want to, and if that means hurting us, they may choose that as well.

But we can control what happens next – at least as far as our behavior is concerned. It is very hard to deal with being treated unfairly, and our first instinct might be to fight back. Fighting fire with fire might work, but it’s not always the best option. Sometimes it just makes the situation worse, and causes more hurt feelings on both sides. So if we don’t return back exactly what’s been done to us, do we have to just take it? Should we do nothing? No. We have options. But choosing the right one takes a little thought.

What if for every injustice, we offered back the opposite of what we received. For anger, we could offer kindness. For jealousy, we could offer acceptance. For selfishness, we could offer charity. For greed, we could offer generosity. For lies, we could offer honesty. If we offer these things in return for the pain, there is a good chance that the person who hurt us will be touched by our consideration and understanding. They may see the error of what they’ve done, and use our example to change. And if they do, that change would most probably be positive. It won’t happen every time, but if our example helps even one person to change for the better, it’s worth the cost.

We’re all going to be hurt by others at times. Sometimes the hurt will be exquisitely painful, devastating even, and it will be hard to turn the other cheek and offer back something better. It will not be easy. But becoming the best person we can be is never easy. We have to rise above the pain, and see the bigger picture. We have to decide that it’s worth it. We have to choose to reach higher. So today, make a choice. Do you want to return fire with fire, or do you want to change the situation and make it better? There is nobility in all of us. Recognize yours. Express it when things go wrong. Embrace it when you get hurt. And show it off to the world. It really is your finest feature.

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What’s on the inside?

17 Apr

I just love to open a brand new box of chocolates. I tear off the cellophane wrapper, open the box and gaze at the gloriously beautiful, decadent, and alluring pieces of delicately designed morsels before me. I lean close and breathe in the wonderful aroma. I’m perfectly happy anticipating the first, delectable bite of deliciousness…but first, I look at the map. I review the map telling me what’s inside those little lovelies because I absolutely detest lemon creams. I hate them. I don’t know why anyone would put lemon with chocolate. Raspberry – delicious, cherry – wonderful, truffle – always, but lemon? No. I hate them. And since you can’t tell what’s on the inside from looking at the beautifully created outside, the map is invaluable. At least to me. Now maybe you don’t care, and lemon is just as good as any other flavor, but for me, it’s a deal breaker.

I have a friend who is very successful and well spoken. She seems cheery and polite most of the time, and she always says the right things to the right people. She seems almost perfect. But when you really get to know her, you realize it’s all an act. Her laughter at the boss’s jokes is fake. In fact, I actually don’t think I’ve ever heard a genuine laugh come from her. She smiles but there is no joy on her face. She moves in rehearsed ways, she says all the predictable phrases, and she changes the way she dresses to match the group she’s with. There doesn’t seem to be anything genuine about her. Everything is fake. When I first met her I thought she was so easy to get along with, so jolly and friendly but then I noticed that as soon as whomever she was charming at the moment walked away, her demeanor immediately changed. She would adjust her personality every time someone new came around and pretend to be like them. After a while I couldn’t tolerate being near her. It was almost painful to watch her go through all these imitations of being real. Who is she inside? I have no idea. I’ve known her for years and I have no idea who she really is. I sometimes wonder if she knows who she is. To me, she’s like a lemon cream. She looks good on the outside, almost perfect, but inside there is something less desirable.

In order to get along and fit in we sometimes have to modify our personality traits, but we can still be genuinely who we are. If we aren’t, who are we? Is it enough to be merely a reflection of those around us? Is it enough to mimic the behaviors of those we want to impress? Is it enough to pretend to be someone else? If we do that over and over we could get lost and actually forget who we really are. And that would be a terrible loss. Each of us has unique gifts to bring to this world. We’re all different and we all have something to offer that is uniquely us. If we ignore those distinctions and simply copy those around us, the world misses out on what we really have to offer. It’s a trap we can fall into when we aren’t confident, when we aren’t sure, when we want badly to fit in. It’s a trap and like all traps, once you’re in, it can be hard to escape.

Think about who you are today. Think about who you really are inside. Are you showing that to those around you or are you pretending to be someone else because you think you’ll be more accepted? Everyone appreciates an honest person who is genuine and clear about who they are. Even when there are disagreements, it’s important to be truthful about where we stand, how we feel, and what we’ll do. If we can do that every day, be completely honest and not play games to fit in, people will come to trust us, to understand what they can expect from us, and know that no matter what comes we will tell it like it is. And when people trust us, we open far more doors in every situation than if we just try to fit in. Be yourself today. Really be who you are. Be confident. Be truthful. Be honest. Don’t deceive others by trying to be something you’re not. Be yourself. It’s the only way to really move forward. And since we can’t go backward, if we aren’t moving forward, we are stuck. And getting stuck gets us nowhere.

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Shoulda Woulda Coulda

16 Apr

We all make dozens of decisions every day. Some are important, some are inconsequential, and some we make without even thinking about them. But what do we do if we find out a decision we have already made may have bad or even disastrous results? How can we process that? We may look back and think, “I can’t believe I did that! I can’t believe I fell for that. I can’t believe I was so stupid.” The problem with looking back is that we can’t project the person we are now back to the person we were when we made the decision. Even if we made the decision last week, we are different now than we were then. Second guessing decisions made in the past based on who we are now will never work. Life happens and things can change in an instant – we get information we didn’t have before, we see the problem differently, someone new enters the picture that changes the entire dynamic. Generally, I think we’ll all agree, people don’t intentionally make bad decisions that will hurt them. We try our best based on the information we have, and the situation we are in.

So how do we deal with the results of a bad decision? How do we go forward? How can we fix things and forgive ourselves for making the mistake? If the decision only hurt us, we can cope with that, learn from it, and move on. But if the decision hurt others, caused the end of a relationship or caused us to lose the trust of those around us, it will be more difficult. If we’ve hurt others we can try to make amends, and apologize.  If we’ve really broken a relationship, we may have to accept that it can’t be fixed, and let it go. That is difficult, especially if it was a relationship we valued, but we can’t go back in time. We can’t change the past. We are where we are. There are no “do overs.” All we can do is go forward from here. If we’ve lost the trust of others, we may be able to restore it if we explain why we chose what we chose, and if we include them going forward when decisions come that will affect them. Over time, if we’re careful, that trust may come back.

We are all only human. We are going to make mistakes. It happens. We don’t get a manual when we come here that warns us to “watch out for that decision you have to make in May…” We learn as we go. Sometimes we screw up. It’s just how it is. And when we screw up, we can learn from it, we can cope with the results of the decision, we can try to fix things again, and we will do better next time. If you’re struggling with a bad decision you’ve made in the past, and you are having trouble letting it go, try to remember why you chose what you chose. You were in a different place, you thought things would go differently, and you wouldn’t have made the decision you made had you known it would end badly. Forgive yourself. It’s not the end of times. It’s just a bump in the road. Next time you’ll get it right.

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Enough is enough.

27 Mar

Expectations.  We all have them.  Others have them for us.  It seems everyone expects us to be this or that, to look like this or that, to act this way or that way, to do things one way or another.  There are expectations everywhere.  You pick up a magazine and nobody in it looks like you.  They don’t even look like anyone you have ever known, but the expectation it seems, is that we should all look like the flawless, perfect, successful, people on those glossy pages.  That’s not only absurd, it’s impossible.  We read stories about 70 year old men who are still running marathons, 60 year old women who look like they are 30, and 30 year old people who are making millions of dollars.  And in each story there seems the implication that if we just worked harder we, too, could be like them.  And often it seems the expectation is that we should want to be like them.  But should we be comparing ourselves to that?

There is always someone in our sphere who expects us to somehow be different than we are and when we don’t meet that expectation, they express their dismay and disappointment.  “Just try a little harder to be the person I think you should be and you’ll be happier,” they seem to say.  But should we be listening to that?  Should we be striving to be someone that somebody else thinks we should be.  Could they possibly know more about us than we know about ourselves?

Most of us have an idea of the person we want to be.  We have personal goals, things we’d like to improve on, things we’d like to do better, things we’d like to stop doing.  Those goals are, as I said – personal.  They belong to us.  They are ours alone.  We set them and we decide how to manage them.  Some we meet, some we let go of, some we keep working on.  The important thing to understand is that they are just ours and nobody else’s.  So when others express their defined expectations for us, we can and should evaluate if those expectations define where we want to go before we give them any credence.  We are the ones who set the standard for the person we want to be.  It really doesn’t matter what our families think we should be, what our friends think we should be, what the world thinks we should be, or what our lovers think we should be.  The important thing is that we become the people WE think we should be.  That is the only way to be genuinely who we are.

We don’t have to fit into anybody’s model to be enough.  We don’t have to become someone else’s design of us.  We are enough just as we are.  We are enough because only we can decide who we want to be and how we want to live.  Nobody’s else’s ideas about those parameters matters.  They don’t matter.  We own who we are.  We decide who we will become.  We choose how we will live.  That’s what matters.

You are enough just as you are.  You are enough.  And as long as you are living your life honestly and in the direction you want to go, you are succeeding.  You get closer every day to where you want to be.  Let the world say what it will, let the expectations roll off, and keep your eyes on the goal you set for yourself.  You are enough.  You will become who you choose to become.  Be clear, be brave, and keep true.

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Do you validate?

22 Mar

I have been watching a TV show where chefs compete to see who can make dishes out of unusual ingredients.  There is a stopwatch involved and it seems very stressful.  Every time I watch this show, when asked why they want to win, one of the chefs will say “It will validate what I’m doing,” or “It will validate that I am where I should be,” or something along this line.  This has been perplexing for me.  I wonder why they need to be validated?  By their own admission, they are doing something they love to do.  They are good at their jobs or certainly would never have been invited to compete in the show.  So, why the need for outside validation?

This has made me wonder about us as people.  If we are happy doing things we love, is it necessary that others validate that we are doing things right?  Is it necessary that we get acceptance and approval? Nobody likes criticism, of course, but do we need everyone to be happy about our decisions?  I don’t think we do.  If we are living our lives the way we want to, and we aren’t hurting anyone else, I don’t think we have to have the approval of anyone else.  We are living OUR lives, not their lives, and making OUR decisions, not theirs.

So I was thinking about my life.  Are there times when I need to be validated in a decision I’ve made?  Do I feel like I have to have approval to continue doing the things I want to do?  I am very independent and for me the approval of others isn’t very important.  I’m not hurting anyone, I’m just making decisions about my own life.  That’s enough for me.  I know friends who go to functions they don’t want to attend because someone said they should, who wear clothes they don’t like because someone didn’t like the way they were dressing, and who changed different aspects of their lifestyle because it didn’t agree with someone else’s idea of how their lives should look.  I don’t want that.  None of us should want that.

Our lives are gifts to US.  Nobody else.  We should be brave and courageous enough to live them the way we want to.  We should dress the way we want to, eat the way we want to, go to the places we like, and stand up for ourselves.  After all, the opinion of others is just that – opinion.   And opinion is just someone else’s idea of something.  Our ideas are just as important as theirs.  So be strong.  Get out there and live your life your way.  You’ll be happier.  This life goes by so fast.  Let’s be as happy as we can!

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