Hey boys and girls...Hope everyone out there in blogland is doing well. Goms had the flu last week and boyyyyyyy was that icky! Imagine if I hadn't gotten the flu shot???? Maybe they just fooled old Gommy and had water in that needle!!! LOL
Today, Goms wants to talk about why people are so adamant about being 'right'.....(no, not the political right....the flip-side of wrong). Goms wondered why it is so important to want to have everyone agree with the way we think. If Tom, Dick, Harry or Jane doesn't think the way we do, it takes something away from us....Really? Does it really? Being right is the identification with a mental position. If you are to be right.....then someone else has to be wrong....right? What does that really mean? It means if you can make the other person seem to be wrong....it makes you feel a stronger sense of 'you'. If you are 'right', you are in a place of superiority. Which then follows that you 'must' be what.............better??? A better what? Can an opinion or a stand or your political affiliation make you a better person? Really? Can it really? Goms thinks not.
It seems that the more we defend our idea of what is right....the more we become defensive and sometimes even aggressive in our defense of our 'rightness'. When people go off the deep end about their beliefs or political affiliations, they are call 'fundamentalist' or 'extremeists' and we all know where extremism leads to. You see, the truth needs no defense...so relax....quit making it about you and not just your opinion of how you see things.
When we are young (and at any age really), we can get our feelings hurt so easily. Gommy remembers one day at pre-school......many, many moons ago in another galaxy...oh no, that is a movie.....but one day on the playground, a little boy was trying to get back at me for something and yelled, "Your Father is a dog catcher." I guess that was the most horrible thing he could come up with....but it hurt my feelings and to this day, I remember how I felt that day when he said it. When Goms thinks back on it, it is clear that it wasn't so much what he said, as how it made me feel about myself. Now, there is absolutely nothing remotely wrong with dog catchers....but his intonation made it seem derogatory, so as a little girl, I turned it inwardly that if there was something wrong with my Father, it must equate that there must be something wrong with his offspring.....DUH...sorry, but that is how the mind works boys and girls. Turns out....it ends up being all about us in every scenario after all.....
Gommy wishes she could get it across to everyone that it really isn't any of our business what someone else thinks about us. It is 'their' opinion and therefore 'their' problem or misguided judgement or fond memory or whatever, that is really all of their 'stuff' wrapped into the equation or opinion.
If teens could just ask themselves, "Do I really value what X, Y or Z thinks of me?", they would be saving themselves such aggravations....But they get all wrapped up in the 'drama' that it actually matters what some little mean girl or boy is saying about them. Just the act of stepping back and realizing that what someone else thinks of you is only the developed reality of their own frame of reference, helps you to take the 'heat' off of 'you'. How they would react to a situation, how they would feel about the issue, or how they would want the outcome to be is really what they are thinking and needing to happen if it were them......get it? It is about them.... NOT you.
So, Goms instructions for today (should you choose to follow them.....) are for you to think back about something someone said about you that may have hurt your feelings and ask yourself if you value their opinion, or are they living their life in the 'perfect' way you wish you could, and if you lived your life as they do, you would be happier, or that they must not have any faults or have made any mistakes along the way and that is why they can judge you.......NOT.....is it starting to become more clear? Realizing that only the 'truth' of who you are is what will give you peace of mind and the self-esteem not to 'care' or 'mind' what someone else thinks!.......It does not matter what someone else 'thinks' of you or your affiliations or opinions......They are just trying to bolster their own self-esteem by wanting to be 'right' by making you 'wrong' or less or whatever. Don't let 'em get to you.....Keep on doing the 'right' thing for you and only care about the opinions of people who really matter and who actually care about YOU!!!!! Pencils down students......And have a nice week boys and girls.....
Hugs & Mush, Gommy
