Monday, February 16, 2015

It's not all about you, or me. It's all about us.

Put yourself in the mindset of others when you grow frustrated. Try and see things from multiple angles that aren't just your personal worldview, since that is by definition centered around yourself and tends to provide a narrow vision. And a narrow vision can box you in and turn internal attitudes negative if you perceive the world as not treating you fairly. But this tends to lead one to treat the people around them unfairly and propagate a negative pattern that taints and gloms onto all activity it encounters like molten carnival nacho cheese that almost immediately hardens into something completely indigestible, all based on what might have only been an incorrect internal perception with no basis in anyone's else's reality at its outset.

I try to think of this to calm myself down when stuck in a line that isn't moving, or a train bursting to capacity, or basically any situation wherein I could grow frustrated by the actions of those around me. It doesn't always work in the moment—I'm human—but when it does it fills me with understanding that cools and quenches the rising fiery negativity at that second, and when not at that second I try to use this view when reflecting further down the road to make sense of that flare up, realizing we're all probably thinking the same misguided notions about everyone around us. And that helps. We're all in this together, right

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