Awareness and Judgements

Quote (paraphrased)
"All people seek only what they perceive as the good, however due to the limitations of perception people can not tell what is always the best option".
-Socrates

My Thoughts
This quote is evidenced by the statement "Well, it seemed like a great idea at the time.".

Most people believe that their view of the world is the right one. It can be frightening to accept the fact that perhaps opening your mind to new possibilities may be a good idea. I think all of us at one time or another have pushed our world view, or perception, onto others. This frequently shows up in relationships and leads to many disagreements and arguments.

Another area this can be easily seen is amongst those people that have lived as foreigners in a country.
I am sure many of you have heard, or said, things like:
I don't understand why -insert their nationality here- do things this way.
Obviously, in -insert your country here- the way we do it is much, much better.
If they would do it our way, everything would work better.
But would it?

I know this may be very hard to believe, but everyone is always trying to do their best.
For example: One generation works 80 hours a week to provide for their family.
They struggle and struggle to get by.
The next generation looks at them and thinks: I don't understand, if they would have done this or that they could have cut their hours, made more money, and enjoyed life more.
Both of these generations are simply acting out of their level of awareness.

You see we all have our own challenges, situations, obstacles, and regrets to deal with and overcome in life. Life is about learning, or not learning, from these experiences.
It is not up to us to sit around and judge everyone.

By letting go of judgments, you can seriously enhance your own personal awareness.
How can you start to let go of these judgments?
You can start by realizing that it is absolutely impossible for you to know what is going on in other people's minds all of the time.
By accepting this as true, you will start to break up the cycle of "I am right" and "they are wrong".
You can also start asking yourself perception based questions like:
"What is another way of looking at this?"
"What if I looked at this from a different point of view?"
If you practice this daily, over time it will become a habit.
You will then find it comfortable simply not knowing why someone would do something that you perceive as "wrong" or "bad".
Remember, maybe that "bad" choice was necessary for their growth.

Until next time...