Self righteousness, arghhhh!

Can anything really be considered Christlike behavior when it is motivated by self interest?

Nobody is above anybody else and suggesting you are, doesn't that prove that you're not?

Perfection is never attained, so is anything other than private judgement (of actions, for the benefit of personal growth) ever ok?

Truthfully shouldn't we all assume that we always have things to learn and things we can change?

I will always remember a lesson I learned as a young child in Canada;

I looked longingly out our front window at three of my cousins riding their bikes and taking jumps in our driveway. I was mad, disgusted, upset and anything else that would suggest unrest.

"How come they get to break the sabbath and we don't?"

My father is generally not the most even-tempered or soft-spoken man in the world but when he responded to me his voice was soothing and exuded kindness from every intonation.

"Our family has chosen not to ride bikes on sunday and we feel that is a way we can honor the Lord's day of rest"

"But Dad, they go to the same church, shouldn't they..."

"Tana, everyone gets to make their own decisions on how they are going to live and what they are going to do to live their religion the best they can"

I grunted and turned away. He gently put a hand on my shoulder and continued.

"Until you have walked in their shoes you can't judge another person for their decisions, we don't play basketball on sunday right?"

"Right"

"Well what if you saw a family playing basketball on sunday and having a really good time, and you made the judgement that they didn't care about honoring the sabbath. Wouldn't you feel bad if later you found that their Dad had a job that made him travel and he was home for only a few days and he was spending every moment of it having fun with his family"

That seemed to make sense to me, and the hardness in my glare softened slightly.

"Tana you are in charge of you, you get to focus on your growth and progression, leave the rest up to the Being who truly can understand other people's situations"

I will always remember my father's words that day, they struck me with an intense force.

Now I'm not always perfect at not judging; but at the very least I do recognize that I'm not always right and I'm not above reproach. I am not better than anyone else, but it does hurt when others openly suggest they are above me.

I am aware that judging others for judging is hypocritical, so let me leave it at this; I am going to try and not judge others but I hope that others can understand my intentions and reserve their judgement as well. It's the least we can do for each other, to not place ourselves above others and become modern Pharasees.

I am tired and done

I'm so tired of defending every move I make because everyone thinks I should operate like them...

I'm done with jumping back and forth between thinking of others and their feelings and then feeling as if I deserve to think about myself once every blue moon...

I'm tired of fighting the world as it really is and finding out that my idealistic view of how it should be will never exist...

I'm done talking and talking and talking and finding that a large portion of people I interact with have no interest in anything I have to say, think or feel...

I'm tired of feeling inadequate because I will never be the kind of mom I want to be...

I'm done thinking that someday I will measure up...

I'm sooooo tired of everything and just want to sleep or watch chick flicks...

I thought I was done feeling sorry for myself but no matter how many times I say "I won't feel sorry for myself anymore" I can't make it true in a real sense...

Anyone else have a hard month?

"If you can't be pretentious in college..."

Most of us now are not in the formal education phase of our lives. For those who still are we are at an age where the romance of college life has worn off and we are left to figuring out the world the way it really is and not the way it appears in text books or professor's minds.

Now as we delve into the world as it really is, we need to be tolerant of those pretentious college students who think because they are in the thick of formal education that they are better informed than we are.

It is to be expected that college students be pompous and a little too self assured. Although for those of us lucky enough to be forming our own opinions instead of being spoon fed agreed upon opinions from the intellectual world, it is best to leave that high opinion of our own knowledge at the institution that declared us educated. By virtue of degree we are educated enough to be aware of how completely uninformed we are.

I may be wrong, after all I am constantly open to the knowledge of other schools of thought, but the smartest people in the world are those who never view themselves as such. They are aware of their own insignificance.

Every once in a while I see the wide eyed face of innocence. A person who has not ever found out the hard way they've been wrong, or seen the ugly face of reality so that their world is forever changed. It is a good thing to be this way, energy, misinformation, and confidence produce lovely people who believe in everything idealistic and sweat hope from every pore. Alas this phase of life cannot last forever and they must be educated for real at some point, some people can avoid this kind of education for a long time, but I have yet to meet someone in their later years that hasn't figured out how completely wrong they've been about a great many things.

I am young, I freely admit that, and that may mean I am wrong on this subject. I'm in no way above finding out I'm wrong, but now I've come to expect it and hope that there may be growth and learning for real; instead of pretended knowledge that is based on fiction or text that is and must be biased.

Side note: Anyone know the popular TV show from which the title of this post is quoted?

First impressions...

This month I will have lived 26 years. Not a lot I know but I thought I would share what I have found to be the most important lesson I have learned in my years on this earth. In the 26yrs I've been alive I have met a slew of people. Old, young, educated, uneducated, smart and less than intelligent (which I might add does not correlate with education as much as people would like to think). Anyway I have over the years formed a lot of first impressions.

One of the most interesting things about first impressions (at least mine that is) is that they are almost always wrong. In my experience first impressions are very shallow and one dimensional. Pegging Any person as only one or two things is most likely incorrect. The only exception to this is when I have thought certain people are kindhearted, loving people. This kind of first impression is not one dimensional and most often kind people really are simply kind people.

Whenever I have pegged somebody as shallow or extremely vain, if I get to know them I find that they are incredibly insecure and often are some of the most beaten inside and have almost the largest capacity for empathy out of anybody else in the world.

If I find a person cold or impersonal often once you get to know them they are the most sweet, loyal and kind people on the planet.

The biggest surprise to me has always been in the area of intelligence. People who can be viewed as dull or uneducated most often care very little if other people find them smart. This in and of itself is an amazingly humble person. Also once you take the time to really get to know (and sometimes spend years doing this) you will find that they have in incredible wealth of knowledge and their judgement is next to impecable. And yet they are still the most down to earth and real people that you will meet.

On my end of first impressions I have found that I tend to be incredibly judgemental. I worry about what other people think so much because I tend to judge others.

Lately I have tried to care less what others think of me, not in a way that lets me be rude to people; but in the long run if somebody thinks I'm a bad parent because my children act out in public, does it really matter? Because I am a good parent and I am doing my very best. It also matters very little if people think I'm intelligent, because really I'm not as smart as I think I am anyway. And if people think I'm stupid what does it matter. As long as I am always progressing I can feel good about what I am doing. I'm not always reading as much as I should or even reading classical literature as much as I should, but I read what I can. I try and continue my learning but at this point in my life it is more about furthering the knowledge of my children and if that stunts my knowledge base that's ok because my knowledge base about children is growing.

This tactic of caring less seems to only work though when I am thinking the best of everyone around me. Which goes along with ignoring my instinctual first impressions and always assuming that people are complex people with wonderful characteristics that could possibly enrich my life.

Now this doesn't mean that people don't sometimes mean to slight me or hurt me. Some people do, but the catch is that it doesn't make them a bad person. If I follow the advice of the Bible and pray for those who hurt my feelings (even intentionally) I find that I have alot more peace. It's a selfish thing to love those around you, because it makes you a happier healthier person.

I'm not great at this, but I am progressing and that is what matters. I love this life and the opportunity it gives us to work on ourselves and to become happier!!!!

Always remember that first impressions are almost always wrong unless you are thinking more about the person instead of less:-)