As you become more self-aware and present in your day-to-day life, you should really take the time and every moment to decide who you choose to be. By this comment I do not mean what job you choose to do, but what type of character and values do you choose to portray and act out. Have you ever taken the time to really consider this?
Today, Seth Godin quickly commented on his blog about treating people with kindness. In it he says that you can decide to treat people well because it will help you get them to do what you want or you can just treat them with kindness because you want to. He didn’t really going into anything else in his post, but I wanted to give my own opinion and thoughts on this matter as well as dive a little deeper into the mindset.
We have a relationship with everything that we experience and we need to decide how to treat people. Now, I believe that “relationship” goes beyond just people and that it is related to things like animals, the environment, physical objects, and literally everything you come in contact with whether it’s alive or an inanimate object. You can get feedback related to your actions by everything that you’re in relation to, but people are obviously the ones that provide you the most honest and detailed information about what you are doing. So, let’s just stay focused on our actions toward people.
Now one way to have a spiritual awakening is to take the time to focus on the present (specifically only this moment) and be aware of how you are responding or reacting to all that you are in relation to. Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations with God talks about deciding who you are and who you want to be in this moment and doing everything in your power to be it. Of course, this requires you to be responsible for your actions and become self-aware and willing to consistently work on yourself and how you respond to the environment around you. Do you have to guts to start to keep record of how you act towards everything around you?
Treating people right, equally, and with respect through acts of kindness or just kind words can make you feel really special and in proud that you are “a kind person.” But, who are you really in this moment? Are you showing kindness to this person because you’re trying to get something out of it or are you too scared to show your actual emotions and feelings towards this person? You need to take a moment and really look at your actions to see why you are doing what you’re doing.
There is no real easy way on how to find who you really are except through lots of deep personal investigation. Emotional intelligence and self-awareness takes work. When you start to make a habit of this you will provide yourself the gift and opportunity of being able to look at each and every moment that you experience and ask yourself the simple question – who do I choose to be in this experience? Understanding that the consequences of your actions can either hurt or help both you and whomever/whatever you are dealing with. It is up to you to choose which side of the equation you want the experience to end up on.
Do you choose to be the angry man or woman that is going to get back at the person that took advantage of you? Do you choose to be the person that only focuses on their own belief structure and refuses to listen to the other side of the story? Do you choose to be “the quintessential victim” and talk about how everyone else caused all your problems and you can just not get ahead? What other countless stories are you willing to let come out of your mouth in this moment?
Or are you going to look deep inside and find your inner strength and personal responsibility so that you can allow yourself to choose to be the best you can be in this moment? You choose...
It doesn’t matter what you choose because ultimately it will be the right choice for you in that moment. I just challenge you by asking if that choice you made is the same one you always make or is it one that contained more love and was a representation of your best self? If it wasn’t the latter, maybe the next one will be…