Gonna pen (type) this out before the thought runs off. We are all on a different journey in life. Expecting or questioning why the ones closest to you aren’t walking the same tangent is a concoction for heartache and frustation.
Lately been having a whole plethora of thoughts that have just been swirling like a cloud above me day after day. Sometimes when a person’s pattern mirrors ours too closely, we shut them down so we don’t have to see ourselves too clearly. Sometimes we confuse their potential for their reality. And we fall in love with an idea of what our future will be like as opposed to the individual it should be with.
We match reality to fantasy and get upset over the disparity.
That hit me hard over the years and yet the funny thing being – I’m still learning this lesson. How we see others is subjective and contingent upon not only our experiences with them, also where we are in life when we cross paths. The context of our relationship with an individual accounts for our perception of them. (hence my frequent statement during conversations with friends “how you see someone is not about them, it’s about you”)
It is liberating and yet, so crushing. When you want to move on and break interactions with a person, you sum them up by their shortcomings and faults. You focus onto the mistakes and why it wouldn’t work out. You want something to work out? To any third party you might be giving in too much. In essence you focus onto the reasons they are right for you and the things you appreciate about them.
Our brain is a choice-supportive mechanism and we live our entire life filtering through stimuli and zooming in on what supports the beliefs and narratives we run growing up. Troubles arise when we see people one-dimensionally. They become the totality of what we need to think to align with our own agendas, our lives and direction.
But that isn’t how people are isn’t it?
We all have choices and free will. And that in itself is both a beautiful and crippling reality. How we see someone depends on what we want to see in them. It hinges onto who we need them to be and most importantly, who we are going to become.
(A painful lesson I learnt that sometimes when who you want to be is no longer aligned to who you spend time with? Your path diverges)
It is a perpetual act of consciously choosing to see people beyond the bits and pieces of who you’ve deemed them to be. To see them collectively as both whole and imperfect. Somedays? I find it excrutiatingly hard especially when I’m at my lower state and question “why should I be seeing and accepting as they are when they view me in such a miyopic manner”.
That said? The weeks have been tough and heavy. It’s lightened up. (along with making a choice to focus on the moments I am moving things along)
Reminder to self? Accept things as they are. Clarify what is of importance and make a choice for me.
