S5 Ep19: You Can’t Make Anyone Else Understand

self-awarenessmindfulnesslife lessonsawarenessconscious awarenessgratitudeunderstanding

Jul 5

You can’t make “them” understand

People can change. But only if they desire to. When they don’t, they won’t.

Sometimes you’re forced to change. Circumstances utterly outside of your control force change. They happen, and they are outside of your control. Intellectually you know this. The heart, however, is quick to disbelieve.

Change can be terrifying, especially when the other side is incredibly uncertain. You have a choice here, whether the change is of your own making or happenstance. Be afraid and resist from there - or - be reasonable and learn what you can do and what it means.

The weaponization of fear

Fear can be a helpful tool. When your life is in danger and you run because of fear, that can be a game changer. Much of the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency in the world today are utterly artificial. They’re made up to evoke fear. When people are afraid, they’re more likely to look outside of themselves for answers, help, and support. Especially when this is an intangible and not life or death. This has led to some of the deepest divides, without open war, in a very long time.

You can’t make them understand

It’s clear to me that one side of this coming election is all about obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. Sadly, I know they feel the same about the other side – obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. A complicit media and almost four decades of brazen greed and hyper-consumerism don’t help.

Worst of all, perhaps, is that you can’t make them understand. Funny thing is, they feel the same about you, too. You can’t make them understand. It’s infuriating when you see injustice and can’t do much about it. Attend the protest, make calls, write letters, send emails, and for the love of exercising your civic duty vote in elections. Sadly, that’s the extent of the actions you can take.

Try though you might, you can’t make them understand.

So what the hell can you do?

Be understanding

What I am getting at here is all about you and yourself. The only person who you can make understand is you. I could focus a ton of my time and energy on them. There has to be a way to make them understand, right? Reason, logic, science, something?

There’s something more to consider. Will that change anything about your life? Will getting them to understand what they don’t impact you?

The only way you can address this at all is to be understanding. Understanding of yourself. You, and only you, know your mind. You’re the only one capable of knowing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what intentions you have, your positive or negative approach, and your actions or inactions. They can’t do that for you just as much as you can’t do that for them.

You can’t make them understand. You can be understanding, but mostly only of and for yourself. This is not selfish. Working with and from this is empowering.

This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:

Actively pay attention to the words being used by advertisers, politicians, various leaders, and so forth. Familiarize yourself with some of the underlying issues that are dark and dangerous and only barely being addressed.

Do what you can so that you are as able to understand as possible. Be mindful, and do what you can to be a good person and a good example of a reasonable, logical, decent human being.