Do you want to be right, or do you want to do the right thing?
An interesting thing about childhood is that we accept the things that happen as normal. We simply don’t know any better, or what normal really is. My childhood taught me how to be a criminal. I had to teach myself that there was a better way. I allowed my childhood conditioning to get the best of me, and also made the major mistake of the young. I thought that I knew more than I actually did. My thinking was largely based upon my personal experience.
I think that most of us really want to be a good person. Even the most wicked of individuals, doing what most of us would consider heinous acts of savagery, believe that what they are doing is for a noble cause. Even the acts of terror we see happening from all of the different ideologies are coming from a sense of righteousness. People don’t explode themselves, or hurt others if they don’t really believe in what they are doing.
It helps me to avoid anger by realizing that these people believe in what they are doing, as much as I am disgusted by, and despise their actions.
I think that maintaining the mindset that there are no evil people, only confused ones, is essential for bringing people together. That is a problem I see in today’s polarized populist, versus establishment dynamic. Both sides think that the other side is the Devil, here to end society and the world. The story is stale, and has been played out repeatedly throughout history.
I think that when we take a step back and realize that every one of us are all simply doing what we believe makes us better people, the truth begins to come into focus. It opens our hearts to other human beings. Remember that the other person believes and feels the same way about what they believe as you do. You think you are smarter than they are? They think they are smarter than you are. The fact of the matter is that 100% of us are misinformed.
Did you ever play the telephone game during school? If you take some time to consider the lessons that that game teaches, you will reveal some profound realities about our global zeitgeist.
Stepping into that paradigm of thought, we might consider that there may be other options than the ones that are provided to us. What is popularly relevant, may not be the best thing to be focusing our minds on. Maybe NO ONE has our best interest in mind. What if we began to focus more on adjusting our thought habits so that we can become better individuals? Is our society not woven by the threads of individuals? Perhaps we can weave a better quality of fabric.
Why are we so quick to lambast someone for a difference in perception, when we are so slow to help others find their own version of happiness? I think that the greatest travesty of our times is not the political climate, nor whether the pendulum of climate change is rocking colder or warmer, but that so many people are wasting so much time focusing on things that they will never take action to change.
So much human potential is being wasted on things not nearly as severe as the dominant hyperbole declares. What is breaking society is that people are taking things literally. The TV and Internet news stations have become the population’s religion. I understand that it seems like everything is a matter of good versus evil, but I think that is a diseased frame of thought. It is how wars are started and maintained. I think that we can all agree that war is something to be avoided. Especially when the us versus them paradigm is merely a matter of perspective. We could all easily be that other person, had we been born somewhere else, and had been raised under different conditions.
Going back to the fact that we are all only doing what we believe in puts us all on the same page. It means that instead of that person being evil, that person is confused. Which one are you more likely to want to show a better path forward? Let us talk to each other with that understanding. Let’s also consider that when we talk to ourselves.
How do you think that we can make things better? Let’s talk about that. I’m not interested in Dogma or Ideologies. I think that what is missing so much in humanity today is what it is that really makes us human. It is the ability to discuss how we can improve things with novel ideas. It is how the wheel was invented, and how we harnessed fire. It has been what has sparked every great period of renaissance in the past. I am convinced that it is the key to sparking our next great expansion into the future. Yet we cling to whatever we have declared to believe in the past, letting our ego imprison us from pursuing other beliefs.
Focusing on what you want is the key to discovering any outcome. Let us focus on a unified humanity of mutual respect. Had our conditioning been different, we could have been that person who we are arguing with. No one really knows the truth anyway. I believe I am writing this document right now, but I could really be in a straight jacket at a mental asylum imagining the whole thing. The same thing is true for all of us. A good principle that I live by is to have strong convictions, but to hold onto them loosely.
I have trained myself to enjoy finding out when I am wrong. The reason for that is because when I find out that I am wrong I can improve my thinking. That makes my perception of reality more accurate, and improves my decision making in life moving forward. I think that people can also sense that when we are having a conversation. I am always open to being convinced if the correct evidence is presented. Remember that phrase, strong convictions, loosely held.
I have come to realize that how I treat other human beings is more important than what I believe. I’ll elaborate on that briefly.
Do I want to achieve my goals, or do I want to win an argument? Do I want to be a good human being that makes the world a better place, or would I rather crush people with intellectual might? I started to ask myself these questions, and I realized that I was living out the latter option of both. While I wanted to achieve my goals and being a better human being, I realized that I was focusing more energy on winning arguments, and hurting others through debate. Sometimes in life, we have to make a choice.
It isn’t the emotion and thoughts that matters, it is the actions that we take that makes an impact. How do I act daily towards others? Instead of getting wrapped up in the belief that I had that justified the argument because I am right, I began to consider the fact that I really don’t know anything anyway. I began to realize that I could be in that straight jacket imagining this whole thing. It began to put things in perspective, and made me realize that how I treat other human beings is far more important that my beliefs. Even when I “know” I’m right. I now ask myself the question, “How would I feel about how I treated this person if I were wrong?”
Wayne Dyer once said, “If given the choice between being right, and being kind, choose kindness.” I disagreed with him at the time, but have come to realize that my new way of life is actually more accurate to who I am than trying to grasp an elusive truth that is beyond my, or anyones comprehension. All humans have are perception, or belief about things. But while absolute truth is never fully attainable, the objective of being a good human being is. I’ll settle for being a good person, with a great quality of life.
My challenge for you is to begin to think in terms of bravery, nobility of character, justice, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, love, and positive faith(optimism).
It is my belief that the only person who we can really control is ourselves, yet most of us spend the majority of the time trying to manipulate the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of others. I think that this is the source of conflict in many situations. Especially when it can be avoided with a little understanding of what it really means to be a human being.
That is why you no longer see me participating in any of the daily discourse. I now focus primarily on my lifelong goals, and helping others. It is my belief that if others would begin to do the same the world would be in for a major healing. I’m not here to convince you of that though. I just want to share my thinking, and hopefully it will inspire even greater thoughts than the ones that I have shared here. I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
Until Next Time,
JR Cook
