As I walked out the door today I realized that the color of my sunglasses matched the color of my shoes. This made me inordinately happy. I told my husband, "Hon... my sunglasses match my shoes". I was happy.
But of course, my happy can't last long because I immediately had to figure out what it was about this particular matching sunglasses/shoes thing that made me so happy.
I realized I would have noticed this matching thing if it occurred on someone else. If YOU were walking down the street and had matching sunglasses/shoes, I surely would have noticed and I would have been happy about it too.
This then moved on to.... "Oh no.. so if I notice that my pants are too tight, I will notice if everyone else's pants are too tight also". Which led to: Whatever someone else noticed about themselves, they would surely notice about me.
So if someone hated how their hair always stuck in their shirt collar, they would always notice hair sticking in shirt collars on other people.
There is just no damn way any of us are ever going to be perfect! Either I will notice something I don't like about me and see it in you... or you will notice something you don't like about yourself and notice it in me...
oh woe :(
Now tell me how this whole train of thought went from something making me happy to something making me worry. In a matter of moments, the initial happy thought turned to shit.
I must work on this.
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hmmmm, the initial problem was when you flipped it around from seeing what you like in other people to seeing what you don't like.
ReplyDeleteso, I think if you make a point of noticing the stuff you like on other people it will come back to you. Start looking for people whose shoes match their sunglasses!
Funny....my reaction was different.
ReplyDeleteYou are now aware of why things bother you on others.....and that can make you more compassionate and humane in your approach to 'seeing'.
It's like with children. A child can 'push' their parents buttons so readily.....and if your stop and think about why you are reacting so strongly, it's usually because they are exhibiting behavior that you yourself have, and don't like.
It all helps you to step back from your reaction and tone it down a bit.
Hummm.....I'm not sure if I'm getting across what I'm actually thinking.
But I think that what it comes down to is....
the more 'aware'(thinking and not just reacting) we are in life, the more open and happy we are.
LOL... yup... i turned that around so fast in my head that the 'good' thought had no time for survival!
ReplyDeleteAs i said... 'i need to work on this'...
i too am a firm believer in thinking, not just reacting, but it still never fails to amaze me how quickly (and easily) it can be turned around.
It made me think of how we can recognize our own worst faults by what we criticize in others. hmmm... We need a mirror, we need "the other" to see ourselves clearly.
ReplyDeleteNot helping here, I know... ;(
SO, back to the happy-- If we can embrace certain things about oursleves, we can embrace those things in other people. If we can learn to tolerate other things about ourselves we'll learn to tolerate those things in others too.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good lesson in self-acceptance.
lots of good thoughts here, but my thought is that you're human, just like the rest of us, and we friggin' booby trap ourselves every day lol
ReplyDeleteBut it's really good to be aware when we do these things because then we just understand our triggers a little bit better....
and hey...were those the glasses and shoes??? I'd totally notice those!
i am so glad that this blog is what it is. i use it to intentional only write about things that are on my mind.
ReplyDeleteall of you have such good words and thoughts... and i really dont spend much time thinking crap about other people or myself... just occasionally i will get blindsided by something twisting so quickly from something positive to something negative.. and this was one of those instances... so i wrote about it.
I WISH THOSE WERE MY DAMN SHOES!!! I had a pair in black, that I bought in Sausalito in 1971 that were almost identical.... my taste in shoes has not changed alot in all these years.... but my feet have :(
And now for a few rousing choruses of "I enjoy being a girl"...all together now
ReplyDeleteI've known her my whole life and she is just plain annoying.
ReplyDelete