Learn From Others Hard Ways!

You know that saying "I had to learn the hard way"? Well sometimes I think it is perfectly reasonable to learn from others hard ways. Not to say that every situation is the same or that you can take one situation and apply it directly to another. You really can't. But how many times have you been hanging out with your girls or your boys talking about a situation and everyone goes man I no what you mean or I went through almost the exact same thing?

There have been many times where people have commented on my honesty or supposed wisdom in various situations. The reason why I have that knowledge or can be so honest is because I spend a great deal of time learning from others hard ways. I spend a great deal of time observing those around me and identifying the red flags that come about. Why? Well I have a genuine interest in people, but also because if I can learn from others situations then maybe I won't have to repeat someone else's mistakes or maybe when similar circumstances begin to show up I can avoid going through the same situation.

Which leads us to the topic of today's note. We are all born with a varying level of pride and ego that is integrated with our perceptions, feelings, and desires. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that we all make decisions when it comes to what we want, see, feel, and do with a varying level of our pride and or ego invested. If we want something really badly and may have invested a great deal of our pride and how we feel about ourselves into the end result of that want. If we get what we want we feel like we have it figured out and we feel really good about our accomplishment. Where as if we do not get what we want it can affect the way that we feel about ourselves, it hurts our pride and our feelings, we may feel varying levels of confusion and disappointment as well.

When people can clearly identify to you what they DO NOT want, believe them. Here is the fact and truth plain and simply. It is difficult at times for us to determine what we want whether it be in a job, relationship, friendship, and etc. This is because you can get what you want and it turns out to be different than what you expected or you change your mind or grow and change in a way that you require something different. Where as when someone is able to identify what they do not want, it is often because they have experienced that in some fashion before or they clearly know due to their current surroundings and circumstances that they do not want it. It is a much more clear determination. Unfortunately, many times we are in tune with our feelings wants and desires to a certain degree and when others express counter to what it is that we want whether it be because of the degree of our pride that is tied into the situation or because of the lack of our ability to understand that because we see something a certain way does not mean that someone else does or even wants to! You may have a clear line of sight that states A, B, C, D, and so on. That is your line of thinking your way of doing things. Where as someone else may think F, G, C, D, I, and so on. It doesn't make one necessarily the correct way or the wrong way to look at things. They are just different. In these cases you have to respect the decisions of others the process where by someone else comes to a decision and most importantly you need to be aware that all the want and hope in the world on your part will not change that.

Which leads to something that is also very difficult for most of us to absorb, and understand, the intentional deception of others. I tend to believe that understanding this frame of mind is very similar to understanding those who think differently than you may in general. Whether they start off with the aim to be honest or dishonest often times it does not matter. What matters is that at times people tell white lies, to hopefully avoid hurting someones feelings or to avoid something small being viewed as or becoming something major. These lies often times are not damning to any relationship. Others tell lies because they don't have the courage to tell the truth, because they want to avoid being judged, or because they do not want someones perception of them to change. These lies are dangerous to any friendship or relationship, because what starts off as something small could eventually turn into a trail of lies a trail of deception and the ending or parting of ways on bad terms. Or worse a pardoning of this behavior that possibly leads to the signaling on your part to another individual that they have power over you. It is difficult to believe or to accept that others willfully at times deceive us and continue to do so if the behavior is left unchecked. We often times want to see the best in others. Second chances and forgiveness are something I am truly a fan of, with this caveat, what will be different??? If someone has betrayed your trust and you accept an apology with out finding out what if anything in them has changed, what about the relationship you have do they now see, and what steps are they going to take to prevent such a deception from occurring again, then you are forgetting the most important piece to this puzzle. YOURSELF! in letting your desire to forgive your want to not lose the interaction you have with this person, you may be cheating yourself out of an opportunity to set boundaries, to value your self worth, and propel yourself into a cycle of unhappiness.

The decision to forgive, the decision to understand a situation or circumstance, the decision to accept someone for who they are, are all things that we have control over, decisions that we have to make on a regular basis. We, however, are not responsible for the decisions or actions of others in response or that make those decisions necessary for us to make. We are responsible for recognizing the qualities with in ourselves that we respect that we have cultivated, such as being honest, considerate of others,or having a strong and upstanding character, for example. It is important to determine then if you have all of these qualities with in you WHY would it ever make sense to find a lack of those qualities acceptable in someone whom you decide to give access to your life, to your feelings? Why does someone else deserve to have someone like you who does have those qualities, and you have to settle for a lack of them?

And lastly for the GUT PUNCH: If you can make compromises meet someone more than half way see what could be where it could go and that person wants to keep you in their life, keep you around, but is not able or willing to meet you in the middle and to make some compromises, why should you believe or wait for that way of thinking to change? Where is your benefit if you compromise what you want for something that may or may not happen? Which brings back around full circle. When you have the opportunity to learn from others situations and circumstances and to hear how in many situations similar to your own, when deception, and an unwillingness to compromise (and not just in words, but through visible actions) were present that it was a situation that had a negative result, learn sooner rather than later that it may be time to re-evaluate your situation and make sure that the time and effort that you are investing in someone is being invested rightly so.