Sunday, June 14, 2020

Perspective

I know it’s hard to see. People that aren’t familiar with 12-step programs and their principles really have nothing that teaches them how to see things from other points of view. Everybody that reads this I’m sure has picked a side in many of the 2020 issues that are all still very well alive. You either wear a mask or don’t. You think the virus is a joke, or you don’t. You think the president is the greatest thing ever, or you think he’s an idiot. You understand Black Lives Matter, or you don’t.  You think the murder hornets are coming for you, or you don’t. Both way, you are right, and you are wrong.

I liken this to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Personally, I remember it vividly. I was working in a busy diner in Palm Beach and we were all glued to the TV when the second plane hit. A woman shrieked and started to cry. She was from Manhattan. I was saddened and I was angry that people would want to do this to our country. But looking back and remembering some interviews I had seen years ago, I realized that there is another side to it. We are the terrorists to the Al Qaeda, and they cheered at the towers fell while we wept and grieved. This is of course an extreme(ist) example, but it illuminates perspective, and maybe we can use this to understand the people we are fighting with in our own country right now.

Fear is driving anger in this country, and it is all coming from disagreement on opinion. We all treasure our opinion, and hopefully, in most cases, opinion should be based on some facts, or maybe how you interpret facts. I believe I have a strong opinion, but that doesn’t mean I’m right, or that it is only my opinion that matters. Politically, I don’t agree with only one side. I like different points of view, and I believe we could all do a better job of listening to each other.

In my program of recovery, I was asked very early on to take inventory of all of my resentments in life—past and present—and find my mistakes in those relationships. It threw out my previous vision that everybody was always out to get me or fuck me over, and I started to look at situations from another angle before I reacted. When I saw that I was also very capable of making mistakes, being wrong or stubborn, or creating chaos, I understood that others were capable of the same, and that allowed me to be forgiving and understanding of others and their views.

You aren’t wrong, I just don’t agree with you. Obviously there are extremists in any wing or religion that I couldn’t agree with, and I should clarify that I do not condone terrorism, racism, intolerance, or anything else that produces violence due to fear. And obviously I don’t think my opinions are wrong, but neither do you. I don’t want to change any minds, as I don’t want mine changed. But I would relish the opportunity to talk it out with anybody that holds different views; not to persuade, but maybe to understand.

I make a lot of assumptions when I form my opinions about racism lately. I assume it’s all white people in the middle of nowhere who have never been exposed to culture. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s also people in urban areas who have had negative experiences with certain races or cultures, or maybe they learned it from their parents. But not all racism is from white people, it goes several directions and none if it is useful or helpful. That part is a fact.

How can you be more useful to your God, or your neighborhood, or your friends? How can you be more constructive on Facebook? How can you be more tolerant, or helpful? Can you see other’s outlooks without finding something to differ with? Can I? We are becoming more divided each day, we are more critical of every little thing we see. Me, too. How do I stop? How do we stop? Should we stop?

Paradigm=opinion. 

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