Could it be that some of the greatest loneliness that we encounter isn’t at all tied to having someone physically with us but instead having someone (or many) who we feel truly ‘get’ us? Isn’t this what causes so much pain beginning in adolescence? Think back to your pre-teen & teen years. How many times did you scream (outwardly or hold it in on the inside) at your family, “You just don’t understand!”? Will Smith expressed what almost all could identify with in his popular song, “Parents Just Don’t Understand”. But parents are just the beginning of a list that does nothing but grow as you age. Add friends, significant others, bosses, neighbors, and strangers. While you are so busy trying to make everyone else understand you, you completely lose touch with being able to understand yourself.
As you get older and have more life experiences, who you are becomes more complex. With more complexity comes a greater likelihood of confusion and not being understood by others outside of yourself. Couple this with the fact that we live in a world where we are trained and encouraged to look outside of ourselves for validation of who we are and our worth & the insanity of things right now may make a bit more sense. Is it not obvious why so many seem unhappy, unfulfilled, confused & lonely? Again, I say the crux of the problem is our old approach. We (and our systems) continue to work under the assumption that it is the job of someone else to make us happy – our parents, our kids, our partners, our governments, our employers, or our friends. We believe that we need to control the behavior of others to help make our lives better. Friends…this can and will NEVER work!
Here is the harsh fact I finally learned 2 years ago – it isn’t anyone else’s job to make us happy and/or fulfilled. We need to learn how to do that ourselves and not many here in America know how to do this very well. In fact, most have absolutely no idea how to find the key to it all – self-love & self-acceptance despite everything and everyone outside of you. If someone found a new approach to this goal of a happy, healthy, fulfilled life, don’t you think that may be of some value?
Here is what you must understand to be true: Everyone is doing the absolute best they can based on 3 things: their knowledge, their understanding, and their awareness. I will repeat this often because by simply reading these words, you will not yet be able to grasp what I am trying to convey. It will likely take repetition and multiple examples for it to truly resonate. Everyone at the level of their entire being – consciousness & subconsciousness – is doing the best they can given their knowledge, their understanding, and their awareness.
I am just beginning to introduce ideas that most will not at first understand. Lack of understanding will result from a lack of knowledge and/or a lack of awareness. Knowledge comes from experience. I don’t care how smart you think you are in this world, you do not know it all. In fact, there is a hell of a lot more you don’t know than do know. And many (most especially the highly educated) are guilty of believing that the knowledge they possess is “better” or “greater” than many others’.
If you believe I may be wrong in this assumption, contemplate this example. Who is more valued and gets more respect in this country…a top executive at a big corporation or an organic farmer? Which has been determined to be “better” to strive for in this world? To have the experience & thus knowledge of a business person or to have the experience & knowledge possessed by a farmer? You know as well as I do that if you son or daughter wanted to become a farmer, chances are likely that you would do everything in your power to convince them otherwise. Yet, the last time I checked we actually need food to survive.
Without a corporation – and I don’t care what the corporation does – you aren’t going to die. Life may change dramatically if some of the bigger companies were to somehow disappear but people wouldn’t die from a business closing it’s doors. If you don’t eat food you die. Does this not make the work of the farmer pretty much one of the most important jobs out there seeing as it provides a basic human need? And finally, folks are coming around to the idea that perhaps our ridiculously over-processed, pesiticde-infested food choices are quite likely the culprit for the massive increase in diseases & illness. This, making the value of an organic farmer even greater. Yet, given these facts, I would bet not many of the business folks would readily acknowledge that the intellect/knowledge of the farmer is even remotely equal to the knowledge they possess let alone believe it to be greater. This matters. A lot!
There is always something to be gained from new knowledge – even if it is to decide that you don’t want that new knowledge to be part of your life experience. That is growth and it too matters if only to make you more aware of what else is out there being lived by others. As I am beginning to discuss, there are tons of experiences being had out in the world that each of us has NOT experienced for ourselves. I didn’t begin to have, witness or learn of many of these until I broke away from the mainstream world 4 1/2 years ago. What I have learned is that if you haven’t experienced it, you can empathize, but you truly cannot fully understand. And honestly, the credibility and thus validity of your opinion on said experience has to then be put into question.
If you don’t consciously strive to educate yourself to some of these other experiences how in the world can you really connect to people other than those highly similar to you? And if you don’t have the awareness that there are a lot of folks NOT like you out there, you truly know no better. But, like it or not, we share our space with lots and lots of people. Some think they can bubble away in their gated communities and private schools but we are all still out here sharing space. It is in the best interest of us all to try to understand one another better. I can guarantee you this will not take place by watching the TV news and believing that you are being told the whole story. You aren’t even being told 5% of the stories out there taking place. Again…we need a new approach.
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