Life is many shades of grey
As you may know the world is topsy turvey right now. I think we can all agree that there is a huge divisiveness in our country. “Our way of thinking is correct”. “It is their fault, not ours.” Back and forth, back and forth. It is all fueled by the news and social media. But I like to think of life in perspectives and I would like to offer a different perspective to the way we may be looking at these crazy times we are in.
Many of us can think of life in black and white:
~~It has to be this way or that.
~~My beliefs are the right ones and yours are screwed up.
~~I’m right and you are wrong.
But as I look at this closer, there are many more perspectives when it comes to my beliefs or what is “right” for me. It is pretty much a grey area. But many of us are not willing to budge on our beliefs or what we think is right. However, on the other edge of the coin is when our beliefs are important to our well-being and livelihood. It gives us stability or drive in having beliefs and our way of thinking.
So what do we do? I like to use this scenario to play around with different ways of thinking, maybe what seems more realistic or loving than stinking thinking. For instance, I may be mad because something didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. I know my way was better. But then I stop and think of other ways it could have gone that would have been just fine. Maybe it won’t be faster or more productive but so what. If it works, then who cares. And many times, it does work out better than how I thought it should be. Doing this creates options and gives us a broader way of thinking.
As for world views, we all have our way of thinking that is good for us. It is difficult and a push against when one side is thinking the other side should think like they do. This is a big problem in our country as one side thinks their side is better. The problem with what is happening now is there is a lot of mistrust and misinformation. We don’t believe what the other side is saying, we don’t trust our government and sometimes we think big business is out to get us.
How can we start having a grey mindset instead of black and white? There are many shades of grey. One place to start is to check out the facts or beliefs you encounter. Do some research. Check out what both sides are saying and decide for yourself what is true. And don’t use social media as part of your fact checking. I think we hear information on social media and just assume it is true when really it is just misinformation. It fuels our hate and our judgments.
So next time you have black and white thoughts, stop and look at how you can look at something different and learn to be more grey.