And I don’t mean things you previously had no strong opinion about.
What is a belief you used to hold that you no longer do, and what/who made you change your mind about it?
And I don’t mean things you previously had no strong opinion about.
What is a belief you used to hold that you no longer do, and what/who made you change your mind about it?
I think in growing up I’ve become less prone to looking at everyone else in the world as an idiot. You know how when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you’re driving around flipping everyone off because you think everyone around you is an idiot and a know-nothing.
The older I’ve gotten the more I realize most people, most creatures in fact, are just bopping along trying to survive and get what they can from life. I guess I’ve gotten less judgmental and more empathetic, seeing most problems as a process problem, and not necessarily the result of a confederacy of idiots out there trying to ruin my life.
I often think that we just happen to live in very large communities that are more or less the same as they’ve been throughout the history of our entire species. It’s made me feel a lot more connected to everyone around me because they don’t feel like strangers anymore, they feel like extended family, in a way.
But I still love flipping people off, I just don’t mean much by it. Like a gesture that says ‘wtf are you doing you idiot’
I used to (love flipping people off) but the older I’ve gotten the less ‘good’ it feels. Partly because, as you get older, you develop a really good thick hide that things slide off of more easily - I mean nothing really bothers me the way it used to. That’s one benefit of getting older.
I’m in my late 20s and I’m on the same boat. Especially when it comes to politics. People are often much more than their politics. Unless they’re in the extreme horizontals of their beliefs.
That nice barista at the coffee shop? Could be a liberal. The dude at the office who held the elevator for you? Could be conservative. That’s just the way it works
Everyone is coming from their own unique set of experiences. And really, as long as I still get my coffee at the coffee shop, and someone is holding an elevator door for me, what does it really matter in the long run. In less than a century, all of us now will be dead and gone, and no one will recall if were liberal, convervative, happy, sad, mean or nice, or even remember that we were here.
Keeping that in mind I try to help other people when they need it and be more sympathetic - life is struggle for everyone.
Sounds like your growth is your realization that people aren’t intending to harm you. That, yes, they are just people bopping along trying to survive. That their indifference to you isn’t malice. A great life lesson.
However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t also idiots.
Not so much that people aren’t intending to harm me but just that they are self-involved and don’t intentionally mean harm most of the time. Yes they’re still idiots, but to them I am also. We all are, really.