Advice | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “Advice”

10 Jul 2012

What Will Other People Think?

Growing up, I remember my adolescent days of wanting to be part of the “in group” – the group that was leading the trends, the people who were at the front of the room in school and popular. I thought if I pleased everyone, I too could be accepted into the popular groups. At that time it seemed like I was always preoccupied with the idea of what other people were thinking.

One of the things I have noticed lately is that even as we all grow up, what others think appears to be many adults preoccupation. So many of the professional people around me seem to want acceptance of others beyond all else. Even in my family there have been struggles over the years on being “people pleasing”. It causes them to twist and turn their lives into places that aren’t really who they genuinely are.

When you constantly worry about what other people think, you can easily get caught in an emotional trap. In reality, you don’t have to please everybody any more than your ability to please everybody allows. It’s that false sense of panic to think that in order to be happy, you must be loved and validated by everyone you meet. Inside you know it’s just not how it works, but you do it anyway.

If you feel controlled or manipulated, its likely that you’re allowing yourself to be controlled or manipulated. It’s good to stand up for what’s right, but no one can pressure you unless you allow them to. Perhaps you don’t see it, or you ignore it, but it can happen easily. Inside your head you want acceptance, and you may be willing to color things to feel like you are not being controlled, but it can happen anyway.

It’s OK to be strong and center yourself on who you really are. How often do we fool ourselves to think it is more spiritual centered to just be quiet and put up with it all. But God doesn’t expect you to be run over by everyone you meet, you are made to be strong and be yourself.

How often are there missed opportunities in our lives that we let pass by? Do we find ourselves burying our talents, our sensibility and throwing them aside in order to please others, to be accepted. Then ironically, we get angry at our circumstances and allow even more control to be sacrificed to others for the sake of being accepted. We wonder how we got where we are.

In the end, it’s good to be ourselves, let the “people pleasing” efforts come out as a result of being ourselves. Don’t let it rule your life. We can allow our spiritual life to guide us to the relationships that are around us, and we will be accepted. Centering yourself on being who you are and not what others want you to be. You will find your goals will change and what you want out of life will be refreshing and personal. You know what other people will think?… won’t you?

28 Jun 2012

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Choosing Reconciliation

There are times in your life when there will be conflict, with your family, lover or friends. There will just be things you will never agree on, because that is the way all humans are designed. It is good to be different. So what then? Perhaps you can focus on reconciliation rather than resolution. I have noticed over the years with many of my friends that couldn’t find a way to grasp this in their relationships, that they lost too much in the process. They expended so much energy in their lives that they would never recover.

Reconciliation drives toward re-establishing relationships. Resolution on the other hand, targets the thought that you have to resolve every issue by coming to a conclusive agreement on everything. I think deep inside most of us know that it can’t happen that way. Whether you both love each other, are the “best of friends” or are highly spiritually centered, whether you have made a promise to never disagree or are determined to “be yourself” at all costs; there are going to be some things you’ll never agree on.

But you can disagree without becoming disagreeable — that’s what God calls wisdom. “It’s wise to compromise. You can have unity without uniformity. You can walk hand-in-hand without seeing eye-to-eye. You can have reconciliation without resolution of every issue.”

It continues to be such a trend today to focus on “being yourself” by being declared unique, and while that itself is important, we seem to take that to an extreme. We risk declaring ourselves so special, so privileged in our sovereign definition of “me” that we forget the fundamental things that brought us together in as friends, or as a “couple” or as what the core of our family. Many of the people around me seem to sacrifice their relationships in order to stand upon their “individualism” and then later wonder why they are alone, why they are forever struggling with the interaction of the world around them.

So we have to appreciate the differences, but then focus on the relationship. I have noticed that often looking back the issues that were creating the rifts in my relationships, they have become insignificant in the scheme of things. In our world full of broken relationships, we would be so much better off if we could commit to striving toward reconciliation.

Making the effort is more than half the battle, winning is not the ultimate reward here. (Sorry for all you self achievers on that point). People often still ask me how I can be married for as long as I have. The words love and honor in the traditional wedding vows are followed by obey, but the thing to obey is our focus on the relationship, the reconciliation and the rewards of what that brings to love. That is one of the things my wife and I are working on every day, and I hope that everyone can keep doing what we can to “make it work”.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Advice, choices, Compassion, Conflict resolution, Kindness, moments, Reconciliation, relationships, Self-Awareness, Self-Help

16 May 2012

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The Parallel Lines of A Relationship

Some times life and the relationship with my life partner run parallel, other times they constantly seem to intersect.

Like two lines we are running along the path together, sometimes we are running next to each other on separate paths – close or distant but along the same direction. Other times we intersect – often make connections on many levels, physically, mentally, reflecting on life’s observations, agreeing on the trials and frustrations of the world around us.

Sometimes those lines are exactly on top of each other. Other times they are spiraling around like diving birds on the summer wind. But parallel or intersections, we continue to move on together.

Once in a while one of us needs to catch up, other times one of us will get far ahead. But ever heading forward, like 2 lines on a piece of paper drawing lines that move ahead in time. Sometimes opposites, but then they say that “opposites attract”. There it will be again: an intersection.

Parallel lines may mean some days we just aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on things. We may be so far away from each other that we ask “where have you been”? Other days we are intersecting with a rhythm of love, sex, and emotion. We love the sharing, we love the intersection. Yet there are days thankfully that we are running apart, those busy times when we are both trying to grasp our own place on the line. Hold on to the path and forward the course of our time on this Earth.

Thank goodness that we are not always on the same line, I think we would struggle to not be ourselves. But just as thankful are those valuable times when the intersection is glorious, beautiful, what memories are built on… before the line continues again off on the plane of life. It is all good. Spirals up and spirals down, straight ahead and weaving back and forward with each other.

Relationships run like parallel lines that still may often intersect, and sometimes run together or farther apart. Live the line, follow the tracks. Don’t give up when the lines seem to never intersect, work harder to find the ways to make sure they do. Just don’t expect them to constantly be connected.