If there's one thing that sets my blood a-boil, it's someone telling me what I can and cannot do. I get the same reaction when I hear someone telling someone else what they can and cannot do.It didn’t take long for me to figure out that it wasn’t wrong or bad to think that a person who assumes they are favored, obliged, smarter, of better breeding, more popular, wealthier – better – is not possible, not true, and certainly far from reality. No one person is ever better than anyone else. Period.
For this reason, no one is ever right in pushing what they believe down my throat. I have the same red blood coursing through my veins, I require food and water and sleep, I eliminate waste and yearn to procreate just as much as the next person – or any other living thing on Earth when it comes right down to it. I do not assume that I know what’s right for another person, and resent it when someone assumes that only what they believe is the right way to believe.
You know, the founders of this country based the tenets of freedom on the ability to believe in whatever and however each individual may choose. To complete the thought, they included in this freedom the absolute right not to believe in anything anyone else says is true.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Once you respect your own right to believe the way you choose for yourself, you will then respect everyone else’s right to choose as well. Your arguments become based on the fundamental right of free will and free choice and are filled with thoughtful, reasoned, logical points. Left behind are the weak, emotional arguments and tactics that only rile, upset and enrage.
I’m going to impose my values on you now by saying that there is one word that you should eliminate from your vocabulary: Should.
Think about it.
Is anyone better than another? Quoting something from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil." In a way, could we say that he looked up to everyone he met. So instead of looking at ourselves being better than someone else, wouldn't Emerson's way be a better perspective? Personally I think so. And yet in history, we had seemed many times where one race had thought of themselves as more superior comparing to another and which led to mass massacre of the other race. If only human learns to live in harmony with each other and to love and respect each other, then there will be a day when we will be united as the human race.
ReplyDeleteAnd as they always say, "opinions are free." Most people are eagers to share their opinions. Much as we need to be open to other's opinions, we need to remind ourselves not to think of what is right or wrong for another and what another should do not should not do. I need to consciously remind myself of making this same error.
The arrogance of some has always taken me by surprise. If all the energy spent on domination were focused on self development, there would be so much more for others to discover within them. That follows Emerson's thinking, and it expands to a redefinition of what value really is.
ReplyDeleteI've met so-called powerful people and have never felt any of the power they have pumped themselves up with. Yet, a few words from others, humble, quiet words along with a keen eye, and they won my respect immediately.
BK, you're always an inspiration. Thanks for stopping in!
Impressive observations.....
ReplyDeleteWhat I would like to add is that "ought to" doesn't seem so hard... evn though it is some kind of order like it seems to give more freedom ;)
I see you made up your mind to leave EC unlike some that just keep talking about it and pulling their widget and then putting it back.
ReplyDeleteYou should always seems like a recommendation to me and I can take it or leave it, but when someone tells me you will then I tend to balk.
Sure, Jude. That's the way I give advice if asked - I give it freely and with no expectation that it will be followed.
ReplyDeleteYes, I left EC. It's tough, I miss the easy way to let people know I've been there even if I don't comment, and I've even been tempted a few times this week to go back, but I can't. I can't allow myself to be dragged down by it any longer. It's not quantity, but quality that matters most to me, and it's turning out the way I'd hoped. You're in my sidebar, so I will stay in touch!
Thanks, Thinkr, for sharing your thoughts. I hadn't thought about "ought," but I think of it along the same lines as "should," or have anyway. Yet, it is a bit softer...