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Right, Wrong or Perspective |
Tune-Up Your
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In my opinion there is no right, there is no wrong, there is only the perspective of each and everyone of us…
Over the years, I have changed my mind about things that I felt strongly were “Right” and somethings that I felt were totally “Wrong”. I’ve found that all of my beliefs are based on how I was brought up and what I was taught. Our beliefs are based on what our parents, teachers, and society teaches. For a while I didn’t question those beliefs, but there were a few things that put me on this quest of wondering if there was a right or wrong or just a perspective.
Let me give you a few examples.
I’m sure I questioned loads of things as I grew up, but…
The first one that I clearly remember questioning was when the Catholic Church changed the rules about eating meat on Friday. I remember pondering this whole change for weeks after it occurred. I wondered what happened to the people who died with that mortal sin on their soul, while the rest of us didn’t have to worry about that anymore? I wondered why did God change his mind? How could God be a loving God and yet make people for centuries go to hell for this act and suddenly it was ok? This particular change affected me and my religious beliefs dramatically, as a very devote catholic girl that thought she wanted to become a nun. The perfect image I held of the Catholic Church began to crumble.
This event was the first “Right” versus “Wrong” that got my attention and made me notice that what was “Wrong” one day was suddenly “Right or OK” to do the next day.
The second dramatic situation regarding “Right” versus “Wrong” came a few years later. It also related to the Catholic church and it was the one that made me realize the hypocrisy going on in the church and was the event that caused me to walk away from the church and faith that had been basically, up to that point, formed most of my beliefs.
During this second situation, I was wanting to marry a non-catholic man and the church required that he and I go through a series of classes in order for us to have our marriage blessed. We decided on a wedding date and for months I tried to reach the priest to schedule the classes, but he never called me back. About 6 weeks before the wedding I finally spoke to the priest, who told me to get married by a justice of peace and if the marriage worked out after 3-5 years, to come back and have the church marry us at that time. This was very troublesome for a devoted catholic, who was taught that if your marriage wasn’t blessed by the church and you died, you were going to go straight to hell. So, what was “Right” and what was “Wrong”?
That was the day I decided that the Catholic church was a joke and that these rules seemed arbitrary instead of based on anything God declared as “Right” versus “Wrong”.
There are so many things we are taught, that carry so much meaning in our lives, but if we look at them and consider them, we would realized that they are only the perspective of the person who decided that they were “Right” versus “Wrong”.
So, over the years I’ve begun to look at everything with a different eye. Here are a few things that might get you thinking too.
Some might ask is it right or wrong to kill another person. I say it’s all about your perspective on the situation. For the most part it is my opinion that killing is wrong. In fact, I would go so far as to say killing done as part of a war is no more right that a cold blooded murder on the street. But, I bet some of you who are reading this would not agree with me, and would defend why we should go to war in specific situations, and why it is necessary to kill people that we are battling with in that war.
Let’s look at this closer… Imagine for a moment the killer on the street, who is angry and just wants justice from those who have, in his or her opinion, done them wrong. In their mind it is perfectly the “Right” thing to do, yet the rest of us will say that it was wrong for them to kill that person, and we would jail them. So, when we go back to the question of war, how is that any different? Aren’t we just justifying in our minds that we are “Right”.
Here’s a closer to home example. You get married and suddenly you find that many of the things you have done for years are done differently than how your spouse does them. We typically decide, albeit unconsciously, that our way is the right way and each of those little things bug us until we erode the love between each other. Here’s an example from my own life. Shortly after marrying my second husband, he folder the bath towels in a different way that the way I was taught. They didn’t fit in the closet the way he did them, because of course I had arranged the closet based on the way I folded towels. So, he put them in the closed, sitting on top of other things. Long story short we had a huge fight about it and I ended up taking over the job of folding the towels the “Right” way.
This is just one example of how silly we can be and how far we can carry something. Looking back I realize that I caused myself more work, by trying to be “Right” instead of just allowing him to do it his way. Today, I would be happy if he took the towels from the dryer and without folding them tossed them onto the shelf in the closet. It’s all just perspective.
Today when I catch myself acting out of habit and unchallenged beliefs, I say to myself whose perspective am I acting upon? Where did this belief or this way come from? Is a different way ok too or maybe even better? Does it matter? I also love to laugh at myself as I realize how silly many of the things I have held as “Right” or the “Right Way” or “Truth”, are only something I learned that just the perspective of the teacher.
So, I invite you to look at just one belief you have about anything and challenge it. Ask the following questions.
And finally, I suggest that you learn to laugh more and take yourself less seriously a WHOLE LOT MORE!
Share your thoughts and let’s start a dialog in the comments box below. I believe that if we all started to look at this closer we would realize how programmed we are and that this dialog has the potential to change our world. Join the dialog by commenting below.
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Right, Wrong or Perspective |
Tune-Up Your
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Disclaimer: |
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