When Life Changes Who You Are - For the Better

One theme in my life that has always plagued me is injustice. When I was a kid, I can remember many occasions when I was accused of something that I didn't do, and it always fell into two categories. One was that it looked like I was guilty, and I didn't speak up because I felt like people wouldn't believe me.

And the other was when my intentions were misunderstood, and I couldn't make the adults understand why I had done something. And because of this, I'm always trying to be careful not to do the same thing with my own kids. But they are similar ages, so they have arguments and different things happen, and I sometimes jump to conclusions, and I can see the same face on them that I had years ago.

Disbelief at the injustice of it all. So that leads me to one important point, which is seeing or missing the truth in a situation. In the last ten years, I've been able to see more clearly the role that I'm playing in a situation because I'm not lying to myself about what my motives are.

And because I can see myself more clearly and objectively, it's easier to see what is really happening. The problem, however, is what to do with this new perspective. If I see that I'm being selfish, for example, then I can't continue to act that way, so it changes what I will do next.

If I see that I am saying something to someone in order to get my own way, then I can't just keep going with it. And I've caught myself and corrected my actions again and again, and that has changed who I am and how I interact with the people around me. And that brings me to telling people the truth.

I always thought that I just wasn't good at confrontation, but now I can see that telling people the truth about themselves to their face isn't the best thing to do. I'm never able to tell people the truth about themselves, even when I really want to. But there is a good reason for this.

And that's my motivation for doing it. Why do I want to tell them their faults or why they're wrong? Of course, the answer is because I want to change them.

I want them to be different or to behave differently. But me telling them will never have the outcome that I'm trying to achieve. Also, it's just not good for me to bring someone down and attack them, even if they do it to me.

But for all of the insight and clarity I have, I'm still what I would call optimistically naive. I want to believe the best about people, and I want to believe that good things will happen for me. I want to think that people are honest in all their dealings with me and that they don't have selfish motives.

And because of this, I often feel let down by people. But that's on me. I lied to myself.

And if the promise of good things doesn't work out, then all I can do is pick myself up, dust myself off, and carry on.

Owning Your Part (Without Blame) to Find Freedom

The worst thing I can do to someone is to try to control them. Trying to control them takes away their choices and their freedom. Individual freedom is very important, and nobody wants to feel like they can't decide for themselves what to do or that they can't choose the thing that they want.

One of the places where I have to be especially careful is with my kids. They are still fairly young, so I need to tell them what to do, but I've found that there is a line that I shouldn't cross. A line where I can control them too much.

I also, of course, have to be careful when I'm talking to my wife. Sometimes what I think is advice comes across too strongly and to her seems like me telling her what to do. And when I cross this line, it's usually because of the tone that I used or my choice of words.

And of course, I experience people trying to control me as well. People try to control me all the time into doing things they want me to do that I don't want to. And this pressure can come from them using their position or status, or their relationship with me.

I used to get pulled into doing a lot of things that I didn't really want to just because I thought I should. And I would dread doing those things, and it would make me unhappy. Now my strategy for this is to not react or commit to anything at the time the person is saying it and then later to just do the thing that I want to do.

There are never any repercussions for me from using this strategy, and the result is always that I'm happier. Another thing that I used to do is to try to change situations. Usually because I know better, which is obviously not true.

And of course, this caused conflict for me with the people around me. But then I started to pick up on the signs better and to back off and stop trying to manipulate the situation to how I wanted it to be. Most of my motivation was purely selfish anyway, and I just wanted the situation to suit me and what I wanted.

But I found that letting things develop naturally and letting other people's input guide the situation brings good results for everyone. So then a lot of my trouble and conflict with people comes from me. And even though I often think that it's other people's fault, probably eighty percent of it started from me.

I'm not talking about huge problems or big arguments either; I'm talking about even the very small things, like how a conversation goes. I want everything, including my everyday interactions, to go smoothly. This requires me to be sensitive or even hypersensitive to the flow of the conversation and the motivations of the people involved.

And because I'm not fixed on a certain outcome, my input isn't too strong, and I have hopefully avoided any conflict.