about people

When I first started blogging, I described myself as being 'older than dirt' and my new family had quite a few good laughs about it.The fact of the matter is, I've been around the block a few times and I've learned a few things about human nature. 

I'm certainly not a psychologist, but some things about people don't need a degree to be figured out--like the fact that we all see things based on our past experiences. 

Sometimes, the negative stuff others have had to deal with makes your words get twisted around in their head. For example, an effort to help can get you lashed at with a string of sentences that aren't even relevant to the situation--all in an effort for that person to defend themselves when it's quite unnecessary.

It's not fun when I have to figure out what's going on. It certainly makes the relationship tense and sometimes, it never gets settled so I'm not sure when I can get back to 'normal' conversations without my words dredging up the past disagreement.

Personally, I believe that all that we say or do is a choice. Our attitude is a choice. Once I figured out that the world doesn't fall off its axis if I don't defend myself to everybody about everything, I felt much better about the world. 

I could let things go without having to prove myself or correcting the rest of the world. 

I smiled more and had fewer headaches. 

I could hear and see things without that automatic defensive mode kicking in.

I could accept people for who they are and not judge them to be like the people of my past.

Even with the negative junk in my own past, I simply make the choice to not let those now-irrelevant things influence my here and now. Life is much easier that way.

Who has the power?

I'm the type of person who finds logic very comforting. I need to know all the 'why's before I can truly understand the whole picture. For example, back in the dark ages when I went to college, my biology teacher couldn't tell me 'why' a cell decides to divide--I was just suppose to accept that it does. Well, that wasn't happening and I didn't do well in the class. [Of course, later on, when they invented microscopes that could look inside a cell, they found that there was, indeed, rhyme and reason for what a cell does. *insert 'I was right' dance here*]

Of course, sometimes, the logic thing can take my brain on tangents that are better left untaken. One example is our juvenile next-door-neighbor. I wondered how my calling the noise control people on him affects his wife. Does he take it out on her by yelling at her? Does he make the house walk on eggshells because nobody knows what to say? But then, I realized that I shouldn't have that much power over his life and he's a fool if he gave it to me!


And I think about the silly person with the 30-year grudge I posted about earlier. Why is she letting me affect her after all this time? I k now I'm good, but didn't know I was THAT good!!


I think about someone I know that wants me to tip-toe around and never get loud because, in their far, far away past, somebody yelled at them and made them feel bad. Sorry, kiddo, being loud sometimes is who I am. Our family gets loud. That's who we are. You need to deal with it. Why are you letting someone who is probably dead (or, at the very least, not even aware of their impact) have power over you a half a world away and several decades later? I don't want to be able to make you feel bad by reminding you of someone in your past. Nobody should have that much power.

So for all those people whose lives are governed by the words and deed of others, I say, Life is about choices. 

Choose to believe that God loves you exactly the way He made you.
Accept that you are worthy of respect and love simply because you're breathing.
Choose to overlook other folk's imperfections if you want them to overlook yours.
Quit letting other people decide if you are going to be happy. No one should be able to make that decision but you.
Decide to be happy every morning!