I used to have this opinion that life is one way and could never step off that line, to be honest I still fight this awkward current that runs through my body, that there is just the ONE path for me. I call this current tunnel vision, the impossibility that there is more than what my narrow mind could ever comprehend. Changing my view point on the world was a long drawn out process and to be honest, its a view point that is still changing. I read the news, or hear a story that makes me see the universe in whole new perspective. The only story I know inside and out is my own, it is not my place (and I have to remind myself of this constantly) to look at the person down the street and say what I would do is better, more right, or less wrong than what they are doing. The only thing I am responsible for is my life and what I choose.
I believe in equality, respect and love for all man-kind, not just the ones who look like me. I am not better than my neighbor, and my neighbor is not better than me. We are all people, human beings that struggle every day to make the choices to bring us closer to the place we want to be. Your house does not make you, your church does not make you, you car, your dog, your work... You make you. There is no hope for mankind, until that personal responsibility somehow works it way into our minds. The personal responsibility of what do I have to offer, what can I give, who can I be, what can I do? Personal responsibility is not about what books you have read, how many plastic cups you recycle, how many church services you attend, etc. Personal responsibility is taking your actions and being accountable for them.
If you have the capability of love and do not offer it, if you have the capability of change but do not do it, if you have the capability of offering respect and do not give it where do you land? Evolving is part of life. Changing is part of life. Supposedly as we grow older, we grow wiser. I think sometimes as we grow older, we grow more stubborn, impatient, and unforgiving.
As we grow up we forget the wisdom of children: my kids fight, I force them to hug and apologize, they do, they move on. They wake up every morning with a new look on life, the oohing and ahhing over the garbage truck, how amazing the snow plow truck is, today I am an artist tomorrow I may be a writer, I am a poet because I said I am. I am a singer because I picked up the barbie keyboard and decided that is what I am.
Granted as we age, situations become complicated and sometimes more complex then our brains can work through however, if we break it down in simple terms of love, care and respect, what excuse do we have? Its hard to look at life simply, to take out the complicated feelings, to look at the world and see AMAZING things in a "messy painting" or a "poem" that is barely legible. Life can weird, sad, hard to understand lets not make it harder but having to be the one to prove I am more right, more better, more perfect than you.
:)
ReplyDelete