Loving Me Loving You

Loving Me Loving You

“I am a realist, not a pessimist,” says a woman I know. She likes to talk about how awful the world is, how horrible people are, how rotten are her co-workers, and how crappy she feels all the time. Poor little lamb. The world she lives in is dark and terrifying with awful people doing awful things to each other. She is exhausted and sick a lot of the time.

I used to live there. I used to believed that people, all people, were awful to each other. I believed the news media. Do I need to say that I was terrified all the time? I felt responsible for suffering all over the world, and doubly guilty because what was I doing to help them? So I was terrified, but also uber-stressed and depressed. Imagine that.

Why do I like people? What makes me notice the good in others? How do I value your presence?

I had this idea that paying a lot of attention to the news was the responsible, adult thing to do. War, pestilence, murder, rape, greed, fire, famine --. Oh, la! Dose me up with misery in the papers, on the radio and tv. It justified my unhappiness. It justified my guilt. It justified my pain. It justified my sense of helplessness.I made friends with people who were as miserable as I. We could spend days telling each other how miserable we were. We did, actually. And it somehow absolved me of taking responsibility for my own well-being. Clearly, if there were so much misery in the world, it stood to reason that I would be miserable.

As I have grown up, I have come to realize that the media doesn’t monger news, they monger fear. And every time I shared bad news, every time I promoted the awful things that happened, I was mongering fear, too. I have come to realize that I am the only one responsible for my well-being. And I am not responsible for yours. I am responsible to you, and endeavor to create safe space for us all to thrive and grow. And I apologize to you for all the horrible things I told you about in the dark ages.

As I have grown up, I have come to realize that people are doing their best, For most of us, we are doing our best to be kind, good, and loving. What we have are issues, topics, mis-learnings and these dictate our behavior. In relatively normal situations, these are pretty mild, annoying perhaps, but not damaging. As the topics get bigger, the behavior gets worse; substance abuse, addictive behaviors, violence, and so on. When the topics get really big, at least inside the person, the behavior gets worse. You know what I mean.

And, as one of my dear friends says, “I am not my behavior.” Remembering this gives us an entree into compassion, and we may need to find that way in for ourselves as well as for others.

In fact, our attitude to others is often our attitude to ourselves. If I see the world as a terrifying place, chances are good that I don’t feel very safe inside me. If I see the world as full of bad people, I may be feeling like a bad person deep inside. It might even be unconscious. And if I see the world as full of kind and loving people doing what they can to make the world nicer, I most likely have a life full of kind and loving people who are doing what they can.
I prefer to live in a world of love. I prefer to look for the good in people, and I avoid the regular media’s take on things. I seek out good news about good works, powerful discoveries that help, individual kindnesses, gracious gestures. My favorite from yesterday was a restaurant owner who posted a notice that invited the person who was eating from her Dumpster to come in for a meal.

How have I changed from wallowing in the worst of humanity to reveling in our goodness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04122015