**As a belated 2015 New Years Resolution, I decided I would write a daily (or, almost daily, I know some days I just won’t be able to find the time) blog answering a thought provoking question from a long list of questions I found here in a quest of self exploration.
Today’s Chosen Question :
Have you done anything lately worth remembering?
I think everything you do is worth remembering. Well, maybe not everything. Choosing what I had for breakfast this morning is not something that should take priority in my memory, but there are other small, daily decisions that I make that are important to my sense of self and definitely worth a placing gently on a shelf in my memory banks.
Say someone makes a rude comment to or about you that you hear in person or see on the Internet. How do you react? Defensiveness will tell you to make a rude comment back, or to be sarcastic – but lately I have been pausing and choosing a different path when I run across instances like this. I think its because I finally realized karma actually does work and exist. It put me at ease and gave me some peace.
Why would anyone choose to take pleasure in being what they have to know is a complete jackass? I don’t have an answer for that because every time I have been one its out of defensiveness… I don’t seek out a person I don’t know and get involved in their business and attack them, nor do I take the vulnerable private things I know about previous friends and use those things against them just because we parted ways. I look at the behaviors I was surrounded with over the last five years and the truth is, those are the last things on this planet that I would ever want to be like. And the only way to successfully achieve that is to turn your back on them completely, to focus on my own happiness and render them irrelevant. Last month I saw a girl I have not spoken to in over a year say she hates me so much that if I killed myself she wouldn’t feel one ounce of regret. (This is a friend I used to have who screwed me over, I never did anything to her in the first place to even render any of this strange hatred.) Instead of being hurt or infuriated, I tilted my head and thought to myself, “Wow, having that much anger and hate inside of you must be really exhausting. You are obviously a very unhappy person.” I should know, I was very angry for a very long time and it is utterly exhausting. And in that moment, I felt pity for the girl. She must be very unhappy with something in her life to be taking out her rage on as random of a person as me. Then I look at two former friends I had that are really trying to make a point on their social networking sites of saying, “We are calling you names and shit talking you and we love it and we want you to know” and its so… sad that its not even hurtful. I am not going to sit here and claim I have never giggled about putting someone else down, but I will say up front that I look back on those times and I am ashamed of myself, and that is not the person I am nor the person I want to be. The two girls that are doing this, I know them well enough to know that they do not have happy lives, they have horrible self esteem and they have millions of problems, some that are not their fault and some self-created. Basically, I understand that they are using me as a scapegoat for their own lack of self worth, and that just makes my heart go out to them and I hope one day they feel better about themselves. When they do, they won’t feel the need to behave that way toward others.
It probably seems like this question got off track, but it actually didn’t. What have I done worth remembering? I changed my mindset. I changed my reactions. I started to believe myself when reminding myself that I am a human being of worth, and I have just as much right to be treated with kindness and respect as everyone else does. When you realize that, the compulsive defensiveness against adversity fades and compassion replaces it. I have been focusing on me rather than on getting back at others, or trying to force others to understand how horrible they are to others.Karma is its own reward, and punishment. When you put negativity out into the world, that is what your life is surrounded by. When you start to see life for all of its possibilities, they open up to you. You just have to reach out and grab them.
The decisions I have been making daily might seem insignificant, but when you look at them all added up they have lead me to a better, happier life. And I am perfectly okay with that.
Kell Frillman - Author 