Clean up, clean up, EVERYbody clean up… songs from
preschool that stick in my head.
You know that moment when you find out someone is coming
over and you totally panic because keeping up with a house with children is, as
my sister says, like shoveling snow in a blizzard? For those of you that have
help, good for you! For those of you who somehow manage to keep up, good for
you! I mean that because I don’t. I can’t. What I learned quickly is I could
make myself INSANE or accept that motherhood is dirty. It just is and that is
okay. I aim for sanitary and content from all family members, for everyone to
be reasonably happy with their space.
Or there’s that moment you walk into someone else’s house
and see that their house is sanitary but a bit or a lot disheveled like your
own. Do you walk in and point out what’s wrong or do you walk in and say
something to make them feel better about the mess when you notice they start to
apologize for it? Most of the people I know would walk in and say something to
make them feel better, maybe even admitting they had not cleaned X in months or
even a year. “Don’t worry about it.”
My point is not about how clean your house is or is not. I
just want people to give the same courtesy when discussing current events. Why
is it that people are so skilled at pointing out flaws in everyone else’s
opinion without looking within their own once in awhile? I’m not perfect. I’ve
done that at times, but because I recognized I have done that, now I try VERY
hard to be open minded to see both sides, to empathize. I see so many people
when discussing issues just point fingers, never owning that their opinion’s house
might need a lil dusting. It doesn’t make any sense to me. If you wouldn’t walk
in to a friend’s house and tell them it looked like shite, then why would you
call out everything that is wrong with their opinion and beliefs and act like
your opinion and beliefs are just perfect… that the people you believe in have
done no wrong, that only one side of an issue is riddled with problems. Why is
it SO hard to admit that your team makes mistakes? We all have free choice to
believe in whom and what we choose, but we as a culture need more empathy to
understand each other. We lift each other up. That’s how change happens.
It’s okay to agree to disagree, but be genuine in listening.
Otherwise we’re just stuck chanting “You suck”. “No YOU suck.” “You suck more!”
Last time I checked no problems got solved that way. We must identify flaws on our
side of the fence to find middle ground. I dunno. I’m so over team colors and
all that has come with the constant divisive competitive culture. This country trains
our children early about win or lose. It’s pushed in their face all around
them. The media feeds it and it’s working. People care more about the win than
what happened to get there. My opinion… there is no win or lose unless we are
all thriving. Both sides of any issue should see their own dirt. Then, THEN, we
can all work on the clean up together.
Whatever side of anything you stand on, try something. Try
imagining standing on the other side of an issue and looking in the window
towards your side. See what needs cleaned. Feel how the other side feels. We
need to see each other again. Maybe, jusssst maybe, some day you will change
your mind about something and have to admit you were wrong. That’s okay too.
Who of us has never believed in something that turned out to be wrong? I do not
call them mistakes. I call them lessons, things we needed to learn along our
way. Thing is if we close our minds so tightly so nothing new gets in, we may
never learn that lesson. These kind of things repeat in our lives, get stored
in our DNA and carry on longer than our eyes can see.
Since I fell down with dis-ease, I had to open my mind up to
begin this journey of healing. I thought I WAS open minded, but what I found
was there was a lot of dust in my opinions that needed cleaned up with truth. I
was wrong about some things. I trusted some who never earned my trust. I
thought some were friends who never were. I was dis-eased with programming I
didn’t know was there. It happened so quietly. I also found people I needed. I
continue to find myself. I continue to find blessings. I continue to learn from
people I didn’t see before. My house is still dusty and needs some cleaning,
but I see you. I hope you see me too. I hope you see others who you are not truly seeing after you read this. Change starts within us and then we clean up this world together.
