Be the Change no. 25

“You don’t have to be out of control.”

Be the Change.

Folks like to make excuses for their actions. The newest reason is commonly referenced as being triggered. And there is nothing wrong with life triggering you. Life triggering you is an important opportunity to work on yourself. My current triggers are intolerance, anger, and hypocrisy.

Let me start with my problems with intolerance as a person with friends, family, and colleagues that have varying beliefs, religions, affiliations, and philosophies. I am not a fan of folks telling other natural law abiding folks how to live their lives. I am not into that type of external micro-managing of the behaviors of others. Dude, I barely have all of my life under control enough to start telling other folks how to live. I am still working on getting my life aligned with my beliefs. Every time I get one thing nailed down, a new goal pops up for me to handle. So, unless your life is totally under control and you have it all figured out, you know, like an adolescent, then I think you get a pass on getting to order other folks around. And if you are working on you, then you have very little time to worry about external controls.

Anger is one of the problems I have inherited genetically. I feel like humans have a deep connection with anger and love BUT anger seems to be the one they access more readily. Anger comes with destruction and taking away from others. Anger about life makes folks do all types of nasty and horrible things. Every year I teach a unit on the Holocaust and every year I get a little more appreciation for the anger and destruction that a small number of hurt people can unleash on the world. And today, with even more hurt and angry folks, the propensity for even worse things to happen in a more diverse area is inevitable. So, angry folks get a lot of my attention because they are dangerous to themselves and to others. Getting angry folks to work on their triggers is what triggers me to go to the angry and point them in the direction of change.

I can’t avoid hypocrisy these days because very few people have thought about why they believe what they believe. From conspiracy folks to mainstream folks, there is a level of accepting hypocritical ideas that just amazes me daily. The whole, “well, they did it first”, “do as I say not as I do”, or “the end goal is what matters” thinking just makes everything a little less beautiful. And I like beauty and simplicity in my life. It takes a lot of work for beauty and simplicity. Those things just don’t happen for folks without a lot of work. They do just happen in nature and that is where I draw my inspiration for living. Life can be messy and beautiful at the same time. BUT life cannot be a matter of doing one thing and saying another. “Your beliefs are your actions. What you say is just what you think.”

Use your triggers to work on becoming a better you. Don’t use them as an excuse to be immature and broken.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange

Be the Change no. 24

“You don’t have to be out of control.”

Be the Change.

There is no need to be angry at folks for the way they behave. For years I have modeled my work life after this idea. I don’t yell out of anger in my classroom. I raise my voice at times and then immediately return to a conversational tone. This amazes my students. “You were just yelling. How can you be so calm?” That is simple when you are still in control. When you are out of control from anger, sadness, pain, joy, fear, then you find yourself unable to pull back to a center. When you keep control and use your voice as a tool, then you remain in control of what happens.

It took me years to apply this behavior outside of the classroom because I was under the impression that most adults were a lot different than middle and high school students. That was an incorrect assumption on my part. Most folks are just as mature and capable of managing their emotions as they were when they lived at home. And a lot of the problems they have with managing emotions go back that far or further.

So, I no longer get angry at folks for lacking the maturity to have conversations about controversial topics. I teach a research unit on debatable claims every year and recognize that, just like my students, a lot of folks need to be taught how to approach differing opinions. I fell into the category a few years ago of attacking the opinions of others, showing the flaws in their ways of thinking, and attempting to reteach where education was needed because I am a teacher. BUT I easily got frustrated with just how our identity is so interwoven into our opinions. One cannot change anymore without the other changing. Part of that is why I started moving toward having principles than beliefs. Beliefs are what folks are ready to die to keep. Principles just govern how you make decisions. It’s easy to look at a principle and use them to guide decisions along the way while beliefs become your entire identity.

Maybe stop losing control? Get back into control of your entire body, including your mind and spirit. Stop lashing out and matching energy. Start mastering you with some guidelines of how to live. I think a lot of people would feel a lot better about themselves and others if they did?

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange