I think there’s a point in your healing journey where you stop trying to convince other people to do the right thing. You just observe their choices, understand their character, and decide what you’re going to allow in your life.

I think there’s a point in your healing journey where you stop trying to convince other people to do the right thing. You just observe their choices, understand their character, and decide what you’re going to allow in your life.

BRIANNA WIEST

Are you content to allow others to make the choices they wish to make in their lives, without judgment or interference?

This particular statement sounds so easy in its most rudimentary format to envision oneself being capable of remaining neutral and impassive in the face of decisions others might prefer.

In a wide selection of circumstances, this perspective might appear readily achievable with very few exceptions. Yet, at a certain point in time, there is a greater likelihood, that one or more of their decisions could be a trigger for you to feel compelled to engage or interact with them on a topic that is controversial, and as a direct consequence, could potentially leave us feeling remiss if we were not, at a minimum, willing to express our perspective, in hopes that they might compelled to alter their own perspective in favor of one that is more aligned with the way that we think ourselves.

The art of ultimately being willing to remain nonplussed by others’ perspectives, is an acquired skill that carries numerous ramifications, not the least of which is our own internal capacity for tolerance, acceptance, and working to live peacefully with others, who do not necessarily see the world through the same filters as we.

In this internal decision, we must clearly evaluate the benefits of living in tranquility, versus the compulsive need to fully express our perspectives with the hope or expectation that others might garner wisdom from our thought process and thereby achieve the opportunity to continue to help sculpt the world to look a little bit more like the one that we have continually envisioned ourselves.

It is unquestionably a quagmire of considered options in terms of our ability to understand, and thereby truly respect the fact that another human being has the capability and the life experience to weigh the same variables as we, ourselves, have given our attention towards, and then accepting the fact that the choices that they might make, are potentially even more practical or appropriate than those of our own perspective. As a result, we become more mentally elastic than we first had predicted we were capable of being.

Part of the process of keeping an open mind is the willingness and desire to recognize that no matter how intelligent, nor informed that we believe that we are, the more uncomfortable we become with the prospect that someone else might have envisioned or calculated or discerned circumstances differently than we ourselves have chosen to do.

If we are truly adept at our open minded perspective, our ability to grow as individuals escalates through the regular practice of acceptance.

Finding our own harmony in that opportunity is paramount to our success and tranquility in life and is a skill that must be mastered in order that we live a more harmonious life in concert with those whom we are continuously engaged with.

Happy Wednesday!