Be kind to others, and be right for yourself.
One of my mentors taught me an incredibly valuable lesson. I was barely 5 years old when I first heard the teaching, which was too young to properly understand the profound nature of the proclamation that was shared with me.
Over the years I’ve been amazed at how incredibly powerful that one statement was, and how it could change so many things about our world if it were followed with more diligence, applied with greater intensity.
Just five simple words. “Always keep an open mind”.
Because there are few things worse in this world than someone who believes they are right, and who is determined to never listen to another point of view. Marriages have broken up because of it, families are destroyed because of it. Societies are torn apart over it, and nations go to war because of it.
For a species that really doesn’t know a lot about the universe and the world in which we live, we certainly seem to be very good at making it up to suit our wants and our needs.
But that is starting to change.
Because the rate at which we are learning new things is accelerating, and the only thing you can be ‘certain’ of is that the ground you are firmly planting your flag in today may not be so secure in the days to follow.
Every time we think we have found something out, we learn later that we were mistaken in our understanding, lost in our desire to be certain more than we desire to be kind.
And kindness is something we seem to always be a little short on. I wish I could say the same about people who think they are right.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong intrinsically with being ‘right’, as long as the truth you cling to affects and applies only to yourself. We need to have things on which to believe, to plan our lives, and to chart our course by.
If not, we become paralyzed and lost in a sea of never ending possibilities that leaves us unable to function.
The problems start when we decide that somebody else should live our truth as their own.
Because I’ve found in my life that when I cling to a truth of mine so tightly, and judge others based on my truth, that I am essentially judging their value through a prism entirely of my own creation.
Gone is an acknowledgement of their own nobility, their own divinity, and of their freedom to choose their life by the dictates of their own conscience.
As another mentor of mine once taught me, “Sin is when we start to treat people as objects”.
So I am trying to be more kind, both to those who I inadvertently judge, and those who would judge me.
Because one of my ‘truths’ is that kindness is really about acknowledging the person I see as my equal, and treating them with the compassion that they deserve, even if they are not yet extending that to me.
Just as our knowledge changes, so can the way we treat people, if we can just let go of our needs and see them for who they truly are.
And lead with kindness.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings