Laura L. Reeves is a Laura has been in business for over 40 years and has learned to be joyfully creative in the most difficult and outrageous situations.
Do not envy the oppressor, And choose none of his ways.
Hollywood does it right each time…the protagonist must make a decision under enormous stress to resolve a typically apocalyptic situation. Whether action, thriller or suspense, the plot requires an answer of which wire to cut, what path to take or who to trust. We do this continually ourselves by selecting careers, friends and more. It is our power to choose that makes all the difference.
It is also our inability to decide that can get us in some pretty sticky situations as well. This stems from so many places. What we were told as children, our education and training, our relationships throughout our lives. These inputs all factor into our choices. The unpleasant truth is we can all be a dictator or an champion.
Forced compliance or being pushed to change our minds is endemic to our societies today. No one wants to be on the outs within the group. Peer pressure doesn’t go away after high school, it just morphs into something more covert and damaging.
The points of coercion are more subtly exercised in our adult lives than during our youth. There is the go along get along idea at work. The indulgence in food, drink or an activity that doesn’t resonate with our integrity. We are encouraged to share gossip to reinforce leverage within the group. There can even be pressure to take part in actions that skirt the boundaries of legality. Not only have we seen it, we have been in its pincers ourselves. The question then becomes, how do we inoculate ourselves against such insidious behavior?
Basically, it behooves us to examine ourselves with brutal honesty and ask the questions that we keep pushing to the edge of our consciousness. Who am I really, what do I truly believe and how do I want to be perceived?
We are definitely more than the sum of our disparate parts. There is an inner core to us as humans that transcends the mechanistic view of individuals. We know without words that there is more to us, more to the world than what we can objectively quantify. All of us sense it at the most profound level of understanding. Whether we call it spirit, soul or being it is our essence. The distilled state of us. It expresses differently in everyone and in varying circumstances but it is uniquely us and to some extent does not vary throughout our lives. When we comprehend this idea, it is clearer who we are and how we are evolving in our lives.
Most of this core makeup is directed by what we believe. Are we pessimistic or optimistic. Objectively realistic or persuasively inconstant. Do we see ourselves as amazing creations born to thrive or unavoidable accidents plodding through life without direction. Are we kind or cruel. Do we understand personal responsibility or do we fob off mistakes onto others. The list is endless. Our personal viewpoint is based on what we believe about ourselves and our connections to people and the natural world. If we are creations of divine intelligence brimming with purpose and joy. then our outlook is formed by that understanding and all of our actions flow naturally from that spring.
With that underpinning we can determine how we want to be understood. Are the opinions of others the drivers of our actions. Or, are we navigating with an internal rudder that remains steadily on course. I have been known to ask, will it matter in 100 years? The question aligns with native wisdom that says we are the beneficiaries of seven generations before us and have an accountability to the seven generations that follow.
The humility to understand that we don’t know everything and to grasp that everything affects everything is the road to wisdom. Personally, I don’t care what people think of me. Neither do I want to cause harm. My desire is to walk through life with immaculately curated peace, joy and love. It requires of me enormous discipline and a heart full of forgiveness. Daily, if not hourly. It is a place of infinite choosing.