Preferences

I love the word, "preferences."  I have learned that letting that word guide me has improved my quality of life to an almost unbelievable degree. 

I used to think that there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything.  I wasn't alone in this belief.  I noticed that a large part of what people said to each other was pointing out that somebody was doing something "wrong."  I certainly include myself in that. 

After I began to become informed about some things that I had never known before, I realized that most of what I thought about "right" was merely a matter of personal preference.  I had confused my preferences with "right."

I had been going through life noticing all the things other people were doing "wrong."  It was my main thought process.  Sometimes I pointed it out to them. 

I began to notice when I was putting other people "under surveillance" I was one very unhappy person.  It made me feel kind of righteous (which counteracted my internal criticism), but I mostly just felt grumpy.  And one thing was definitely and for sure - other people really began to avoid me.  Why would they not?  I don't like hanging out with critics - why would they?

Here are some examples -

• I noticed that I didn't like how some people dressed.  I thought they were doing it "wrong."  Then I realized I just had preferences about clothing and that applying those to myself made me happy.  Then it become very easy to ignore other people's preferences about clothes.

• I also discovered that I didn't like some kinds of cars, furniture, hair-dos, foods and on and on.  Somehow I had decided that my "preferences" were the "right" ones and declared everyone else wrong.  Oops!  I did it again!  The same solution applied - enjoy my own preferences and respect other people's preferences.

• When other people were not doing things "perfectly" (according to my definition of perfection), it annoyed me.  For example, when my husband drove a different speed than I thought he should, I pointed it out.  All my "back seat driving" habits did not improve our relationship. 

• I learned that everyone has his or her own definition of perfection and that doing things my own way and shutting up when in the presence of someone doing something differently than I did, would improve my quality of life.  For example, I stopped putting dishes away in the places I thought they should go when helping in someone's kitchen, and started asking where they kept them instead.

My focus on my own preferences and enjoying them certainly improves my quality of life.  But being mentally peaceful instead of being on the alert for wrong-doing improves my quality of life even more.  Most of all, my relationships with other people have improved and that's the best.

Action vs. Reaction

Somehow I came to believe that my life was mostly about just reacting to what came my way.  I had vague notions of what I thought my life should be about, but a great deal of the time, I was reacting - reacting to what was going on around me, other people, and to my emotions.

The death of Nelson Mandela this past week, called to mind the opposite of reacting to life.  He chose a life purpose - freedom for his people - and carried it into prison with him.  He certainly had plenty he could have reacted to, but  instead he chose to act in a strategic way - beginning with insisting that the prison guards call him Mr. Mandela or he refused to respond to them. 

Of course, I'm not Nelson Mandela and I don't have a big life purpose that affects the world like he did.  However, like every person, I have an opportunity to choose a life purpose and create the life I want.  Most of the obstacles I will come in contact with are within me rather than outside myself.  In order not to sleepwalk through life, just reacting to what's around me, I must take the time to consult my higher self and my higher power for direction.