The older I get, the more I would rather sit alone, than with people who judge the way I live.
The older I get, the more I would rather sit alone, than with people who judge the way I live.
There are so many aspects to maintaining balance in the course of a daily life. If we are to distill them down into individual components, the requirements are exhaustive.
Beyond the survival variables, we each make so many individual choices in terms of family, interests, wardrobe, friends, employment, entertainment, studies, hobbies, reading materials, service, religion, and use of our free time… to name only but a few.
As we mature, we are subject to numerous third parties who presume to judge us by our combined set of variables, whether chosen or inherited. There is no escaping this aspect of human behavior. It is a natural occurrence and it can bring both positive and negative experiences into our lives.
Walking the fine line between allowing some of this judgment to become wind under our wings while simultaneously protecting ourselves from unnecessary harsh judgment that is undeserved can be a delicate balancing act at best.
The more self-confident we become, the more capable we are of discerning the difference between the two. With maturity, we discover the benefit of learning how to filter out all of the negativity that can stem from the harsh perspective of others. Their jealousy, or insecurity or envy can manifest in some of the most uncomfortable experiences that we might encounter in our day-to-day existence. The choices they might make in their communication of such can disrupt harmony and balance in our lives and replace those with a wave of negativity that we, in many cases, are unable to avoid. Perhaps the only solution is to become so self-confident that we are more adept at filtering those kinds of people and circumstances from our daily existence, wherever possible.
When we discover that sometimes we are our own best company, we become deeply empowered to discard the company of those who might otherwise rob us of our harmony or wa, as it’s called in the Japanese culture. These qualities are some of the most sought after values in life. So the awareness that is required to generate a rearguard which protects us from such disruption, could not be more necessary.
Our journey as individuals is crucial to the development of a life worth living. This lesson is not always easily learned, often requiring numerous encounters with those who pound this lesson into us through negativity and uncomfortable attacks on aspects of our being.
When you emerge from such an attack, I believe it is most wise to take a calm stance and see those attacks as beneficial. I call them my “Zen masters,” because each and every one of these attacks are experiences that work diligently to destroy my balance, and cause me to fall, fail or be miserable. By categorizing them as a Zen master, I reconfigure their place in my world as regular tests of my increasing ability to discard them like water off a duck’s back. This task is neither pleasant, nor easy…. But learning and mastering such a system can significantly reduce a life full of unwarranted negative stimuli that only impedes our true potential from emerging.
The choice is yours.
Happy Monday!
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