Tags
advice, forgive, handle bully, life lesson, quotes, rise above
Isn’t it true that most of us often wonder why the world is the way it is? Someone cuts you off in traffic, slams the door in your face, is rude for no reason while you are standing there with a once joyous smile now fading into huh what just happened?!
When the response from family and friends or basically anyone we come in contact with leave us frustrated with humanity, it’s so easy to get disillusioned with the world. And I can write this because I live it on a daily basis. Idealism becomes me to the point where reality is too much to bear. I don’t process injustice well. However, if we all got what we deserved… I shutter just thinking about it.
Which brings me to one simple yet deeply profound statement that has become one of my core values in life. Be the person you wish everyone else would be. It’s so much easier said than done. Our normal actions are re-actions. But, what if we chose to live offensively rather than defensively? I would call that living on purpose, with intent. Staying focused on who we are, not on how we feel, or how they acted. I am guilty of trying to give people a taste of their own medicine. It never works, mainly because I do not like the way it makes me feel. I do not like stooping down to the level that provoked my anger, and the way it feels provoking others anger. It’s exhausting and it just bothers me… a lot!
I have found, that when I remain constant, I am able to affect far more positive outcomes than when I stoop down and start playing in the mud. Eye for an eye never brings the kind of satisfaction you think it will. Our own anger and bitter feelings eat away at us. They affect us, far more than our target. Who frankly is just on to the next thing, and most of the time has no clue we are plotting their demise. I beat myself up for things I’ve said and done to the point where I’m bruised and in the end I think, I should have just let it go.
In the times where people have treated me unfair, wronged me, been inconsiderate or even downright hurtful, and I have managed to keep my head up and still treat them with respect and show the integrity that I carry, I have grown. And that growth develops so much stuff inside of you that you will not be able to contain. It has taught me that I do not have to be thrown around by circumstances, and you know what… part of the anger we feel is the uncertainty of not being in control. The feeling that other people can affect our emotions to the point where it affects our life. However, that does not have to be. Our joy, is not based on what happens. Our integrity, our sureness, our confidence is OURS and we choose. WE CHOOSE!
Rather than playing the victim in life which honestly, the role is heavily over played these days, maybe it’s time to just rise above. I am who I am, and those who don’t treat me with respect will simply lose a voice in my life. It’s not a matter of letting their actions cut me down and cause me to lose balance, it’s a matter of identifying that they have no respect, they do not have control of their emotions, they are not people of integrity so therefore they are not someone I choose to be around. If that person happens to be a boss or a coworker, or someone you can’t just “not be around” then it’s time to rise above. You will do your job as expected, will be respectful, will be genuinely you but in your mind you will not take them in high regard. Only those who have established they are people of integrity should have any ability to affect us. They should be the one’s speaking into our lives and helping us look twice at things. Our job should be to decipher the voices in our life that we should listen to. The ones who speak with love, they aren’t always perfect but are coming from people whose hearts we know, and whose lives we trust. The rest, are a wash. Half the time the responses people have towards you, aren’t even about you, they are more about the fight they just had that morning, or the fact that the dog howled all night and they got no sleep or it could just be they are miserable people who want to make the rest of us miserable.
Don’t give everyone the right in to your heart that only few should hold. The people who are ruthless, rude, downright nasty will get theirs, trust me, it always happens and you do not need to take that into your own hands. Because when it does happen, most of the time you will find yourself feeling sorry for them rather than celebrating. What you sow, you shall reap. And though some people are blind, most can see who a person is. And yes, life isn’t always fair but we already discovered that if life were fair we too would get what is coming to us. So my theory is to just be the someone who I myself would want to know, that I myself would respect and hopefully as we all “be” that person, we will one by one change our worlds.
