We have to choose our battles. We have to pick the ones that are really worth fighting for and let everything else go. You don’t have enough time on this planet to be right about everything – because usually when you try to be right, you give away your happiness. Funny how that works huh?
Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” I think we should take that lesson and apply it to every single aspect of our lives. We try so hard to be right about things thinking that will give us some sort of long term happiness. What I’ve found time and time again is that life is about compromises and sacrifices, not about being right. You have to give a little to get a little…and when you give a lot, that will come back around to you in time. It might not be right away, but it will. Karma works in wonderful ways.
Just because you wouldn’t do something doesn’t mean that the other person was wrong. In fact, there are countless other perspectives out there for people to be a part of. Endless amounts really. Your way isn’t the way. And this might be a frustration concept to some…but there is no way. We go through this life doing what we think is best for us, and for those who have some type of insight into their life…they adapt and adjust along the way to do what feels right. For all of the complex arguments there are out there, doing right makes you feel good and doing wrong makes you feel bad. Pretty simple way of living your life.
I am learning every single day. In fact, these days I am far more awake than I have ever been. I am digging into my life more than ever before and I love that. I’ve been called deep because my mind always starts traveling down this windy road…and sometimes that’s a little much for people to handle…but I can’t help it. It’s who I am. It’s what I am. I didn’t used to be this way. In fact, I used to be complete action and reaction. Something would happen…boom there was my explosive response – whether it was good or bad. Living that way was killing me. It was taking everything out of me and I couldn’t do it anymore. So I had to make a change.
February 9th 2010 was that day.
That day will forever define the rest of my life because I decided that I was far better off doing personal cave diving every single day than ignoring what was inside. I go deep into myself because I know it matters. I know it matters because the things that I have learned about my life…the list of lessons…is pretty close to endless. Sure I write here and we are coming up on 1,000 posts, but I do this every single day – writing or not.
Those battles you decide to pick, make them for something not against something. Fight for something. Fight for a dream, a vision, a person…but don’t fight against those things. Don’t be your own worst enemy. Find a way to compromise with people and life. You can’t bludgeon these things into submission. People you may be able to do that with but you will end up feeling horrible about yourself and things will never recover. Life though, life will always kick your butt in that fight. No matter how much you thought you won, it’s going to come back and kick you with a size 14 boot. And it hurts. Trust me.
Tomorrow is one of the biggest days of my life. Tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I take a step that I have been thinking about for years – I start my professional life coaching school. I’ve been reading one of my books “Coaching – Evoking Excellence In Others” by James Flaherty and everything is resonating with me at such a high frequency. For such a long time I felt like I didn’t have the foundation I needed to be a successful coach. Through reading this book, I am realizing more and more than I had some of the knowledge, just not the confirmation and background to ensure that this was indeed the correct foundation to build upon. I can’t wait to build upon these past four years and enter into a profession I know that I can be absolutely passionate about and create the rest of my life with.
These are good days, very good days. They are about to get even better.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project
Thank you Marisol! You are so right…we have to have the ability to understand others without judging them. That may not be the decision we would make, but we can force our lives and our ideals onto others. Thank you so much for the support as well.
Definitely agree. Some of my close friends have taken some steps that have really surprised me lately. Because I understand everyone’s path is different, I’m in a place where I can support without judging. We don’t know what makes other people happy or why they do what they do. We do know that when someone questions our own motives, we get really upset, so why do that of others? The day you mentioned came to me sometime around October-November of 2010. It was a really sucky time, but I’m glad of what it made me. Congrats on your new business plan!