Acknowledging Ourselves

We exist. We ARE. We live and die, and somewhere in-between the two, we learn.

WHAT we learn depends on so many factors such as our living environments, our support teams on earth and beyond who protect us and nurture our growth, and that soul spark within us that drives us forward toward some unseen goal or aspiration that only our hearts may recognize.

When very young if we were well supported and encouraged to make the most of our talents and proclivities, we developed self-confidence and open-mindedness. We were often then eager to face the wonders of this amazing world stretched out so beautifully before us.

If we were left to fend for ourselves from childhood onwards, we learned to survive by any means necessary. What we learned from those circumstances were more along the lines of primal self-preservation rather than consideration of others. We learned to compete, to win to live, and to take no prisoners in the process because they only consumed precious resources we may need in the future for ourselves.

I was fortunate to be among the first description—the well supported and protected. That has likely made all the difference in my life.

But as a baby had I not been offered up for adoption to a family that could provide those very things, I might have been among the second description—left to fend for myself in a more dysfunctional family situation.

Was my particular destiny the ‘luck of the draw’ or preordained? Depends on your beliefs, I guess. Either way, advantageous or unfavorable upbringings are part of the reason that we become who we are as adult people in a sometimes loving/sometimes harsh world.

While I’m not a fence-straddler on rightness and wrongness aspects by any means, I do try to see others’ perspectives and viewpoints when I consider judging them for their actions or deeds because we eventually become who we are allowed to slowly blossom into, or we become who and what we most need to be at our earliest opportunity—even become our own defenders when necessary, at any age.  

Children learn quickly to utilize whatever works best for them in each situation with adults—what attitudes, what demeanors, what masks, what words, what tactics, what emotions to display. We learn early on how to gain attention, and sometimes how to avoid it.

We learn to stand out in a crowd or to hide away in a closet under a pile of clothes, depending on the audience we must play to. We learn so many life-sustaining tricks to evolve from one day to the next, from one week to the next, and from one year to the next—if we are able to live that long. Children are resourceful—we learn what must be done to survive or thrive.

So how do we look around ourselves at such diverse human life experiences and try to come together on supporting common social causes and gathering group consensus for creating a better society and world culture?  How do we know what is BEST for ALL of us?

My only suggestion is to ‘listen more and talk less.’

Maybe then we can really hear what our neighbors are saying to us, and begin to better understand how they actually feel.

And wouldn’t it be super nice if they did the same for us?