We Fail To Look At Our Own Faults

Attention all humans, this blog post may make all of us a little uncomfortable.  In my view, that's okay because sometimes we need to be challenged a little bit.  We need to be pushed out of our comfort zone.  I promise though, I'll do it with love and ease and compassion.

One of the things I grew up with was living in a house where we criticized others.  Other people weren't good enough.  They didn't do things right.  They weren't righteous enough.  They weren't smart enough or nice enough.  They just didn't measure up.

In fact, even within the house, there was always someone in the doghouse because they weren't good enough or didn't follow directions and commands as dictated by my father and God almighty.  If you didn't measure up, you were shunned, pushed aside and ridiculed.

Today in our society, I see far too often where we point the fingers at other people, but we hold ourselves up as we are better than others.  Whether it is politics or religion or in our little society clicks, we tend to do this.  We see the stick in our brother's eye but we don't see the log in our own eye.

We go on social media or we join in causes pointing out just how bad the "others" are in our society.  We proclaim how unenlightened and stupid they are.  We proclaim how they are like sheep.  We create conspiracy theories to prove our points.  We have our facts as we know them to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are right and others are wrong.

Yet, we don't stop and look at ourselves.  I'm not talking about other people who don't stop and look at themselves.  I'm talking about each one of us, myself included.  We find their faults, but we see our life as perfect.  We find their faults, but we fail to even begin to understand the work we need to do on ourselves.

It is epidemic and it increases more with each day that goes by.  It is sad because when we point the finger of blame and accusation while holding ourselves up on a pedestal, it is then that we have lost site of what it means to be human.  We have lost the love that we proclaim we have.  We have lost the compassion and respect for others which we think we have.

It isn't up to any leader, political or religious or others, to change this.  This change has to start within us, even if we think it should start in others.  This change has to begin in our life.  It needs to be from the core and depth of our being, not just from the words we speak but with action.

If we want this world to prosper for all and to continue, we must begin changing ourselves.  Our change must not be dependent upon what others tell us to think or what they do.  In order to grow as an individual, it becomes a necessity to change ourselves.

We can and we do impact and influence this world.  Unfortunately in these times, it seems like more negativity is being spewed on social media and in our casual acquaintances than ever before.  Surely we can do better than this.  Surely we can be more than we are.  Before we all run off the cliff hanging on to our own beliefs, may we wake up and heed the warning lights.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

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Negativity Makes Us Less Than Human

It is sad to watch how the world behaves these days.  It seems that everyone is caught up in the fear, the loathing, the hatred, judgement and criticism of one another.  I can't speak for all countries and nations of the world because I do not live or travel there, but in the US, it is a very toxic place.

All you have to do is take a moment and observe what is going on around you.  If you watch the news or follow it along on the internet, you'll see just how toxic it has become.  We are not doing anyone much good these days and if we don't reverse this, I fear we will completely lose our sense of humanity.

Take for example, the Olympics and Michael Phelps.  The other day when he did not win the gold, I immediately saw a twitter trend of many negative comments towards him.  It was almost like people reveled and took joy in his demise of not winning the race.  One person even tweeted me as if to enlighten me that while Phelps had done great things, he is very douche like.  While I'm not sure exactly what she was referring to, my response was that I try to find the good in all people.  After all, this is a competition and yet, we feel the need to hate and criticize with negativity something that someone does who we barely know or interact with?  It still boggles my mind just how hateful these things were.

Self Confidence And Believing In Myself

Sometimes I struggle daily with myself.  Sometimes, no matter what I feel like I'm biologically wired to see the negative, instead of the positive.  Self confidence and believing in myself often take a beating.  One such example happened yesterday.  Instead of burying into this like I normally do, I'm going to write about it and shine the light of day on this struggle in my life.

What may seem like a routine repair to some, is like an accomplishment the size of flying to the moon for me.  Our pool pump motor had gone out in the lightening storm a couple of nights ago.  After much time trying to figure out what I needed to do and not wanting to spend any more money than we absolutely needed to, I realized I had to replace the motor.

I'm not a mechanical person and I dislike doing repair work so much that I'd rather not do it.  On top of that, I'm often afraid that I will just mess things up and so I can talk myself out of doing the repair work quicker than a snake can shed its skin.  Ugh.. I hate that analogy.  However, I am usually able to figure out many things and will generally find a way to fix something, within reason of course.

People Are Too Quick To Criticize

One of the plagues upon our civilization is how we treat each other as humans.  We spend way to much time tearing each other down, than we do building them up.  People are too quick to criticize each other, rather than finding the good in one another.  The positive things in others is always there, even if we have to unearth a couple of rocks to find it.

When we focus more on tearing each other apart and being quick to criticize, we are really degrading ourselves as humans.  It is a strong reflection upon how we view our own life and so the problem does not lie within others, but it is completely at our feet.  We are the masters of how we view our life and those around us.  It is not something that is wrong with everyone else, but where we fall deficient in our own life.

Lately, I've had experiences where I did worthwhile and creative projects only to be dished by criticism.  While I try hard to not do it for what others think of me or what they think of the project, I would be lying if I said that their feedback didn't impact me.  Maybe it is due to my own struggle with self confidence, but if you create something and no one cares, I have to wonder if it truly matters.  Most likely it does matter, but never-the-less, it is difficult when you get no positive feedback from your creativity.