It seems to me that we have two cultural forces that prevent most of us from achieving our goals of living a peaceful life:
1) The need to be right.
2) The need for approval.
Now, I think if we take just a moment to really study these two attitudes it becomes readily apparent that they are not compatible. If we are working hard to convince a person that they are wrong and I/you/we are right, then probably we are not going to have their approval...and vice versa. Please, excuse me for seeming harsh here, but this is a sickness.
Is it so important to be right that we argue with friends, colleagues and loved ones repeatedly? Does any good ever come from this kind of behavior? And if people agree with us, does the compulsion to argue go away? No. We only find temporary ego gratification and then the need to be right reemerges and we find another reason to fight...again and again.
And what about approval? There was a comic strip that I read a long time ago in which the lead character stated, "Everybody is somebody else's weirdo." So true. To become comfortable in your own skin, you run the risk of offending another. Someone somewhere will not approve of the way you dress, walk, talk, smile, ect. Trying to please everyone leads to discontent.
If everyone wants to be right and everyone wants approval, what do we have?
Let's sit back and imagine that for a moment. Hm-m-m...It's not hard to visualize. In fact, we see it usually without trying. Fighting, insecurity and confusion. And, I can tell you that no matter how much we may want it, we can not control other people.
We are not apart from life, we are a part of Life. I change myself, my world changes. If you change yourself, your world changes. If I meditate and let go of trying to control others, I become balanced. And so it goes for us all. But this takes practice. And practice requires time. Which we say we don't have. But somehow, we find the time to argue.
I don't know about you, but I'm going to make more time for meditation and less time for fighting. I'm going to put more effort into watching the contents of my own mind and worrying less about changing the minds of others.
Namaste,
Sandy
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