the best option?

Choosing your battles is for me been a challenge in the recent past. I have found myself really looking hard at a situation and discovering which aspect of it really deserves my energy. I have been confronted with significant frustration on a multi dimensional level, and trying to find it within myself to confront my frustration with as much patient and reserve as I can.

In attempts to give enough information yet remain at enough at a distance to keep all parties involved out of the line of fire, all I can share is that I have seen many things over the last week. I have been witness to unkind words, impatience, inflexibility, and selfishness. I have been bombarded with most of these within just a few days.

Unkind words to me, especially when made to a persons face or without their knowledge, don't have much of a role in my day. For me, the harshness of words can really impact a soul and hurt them profoundly. In my earlier years, I found myself gossiping about "friends" of mine. If there was a conversation regarding someone negatively, I would find myself contributing without true cause. Since those times, I have become significantly aware that our words are our most true expressions. We live by our words, and when a person has a reputation for speaking ruthlessly, they carry the brand that goes along with it. I don't want to be known as that, and I don't want to be surrounded by it.

Impatience can change a more or less beautiful moment or experience into one of tension and hurt. Impatience only communicates that a person is so unwilling to be asked to compromise or negotiate anything and to me shows a significant amount of insecurity. I have been company to extreme impatience and to the point where it has impacted my impression negatively of people in my immediate circle. For me, it makes me want to become that much more flexible, because I never want to live my life as though I am in such need for control. I want to be relied on as someone capable of handling unpredictability with grace.

Selfishness wears many hats. It can be manifested in so many ways and can harm so greatly recipients of its wrath. I have been unfortunate company to some selfishness that has all but brought me to tears. And yet, if there is an opportunity to contain the anger, let time pass and re-evaluate, you will find that the desire to behave irrationally (anger, violence, etc) will become less intense.

So in light of all of these emotions that have consumed some of the people in my environment, I find that there is one basic solution that helps me not only find peace but be able to proceed with my day: come to the conclusion that their actions have very little to do with me as a person. Know that my inability to move forward without being dragged down with it will do nothing but hinder my soul. So therefore I can proceed with my day and let these people and their insecurities come and pass. I can only hope that a point of realization will occur and that their behavior will soften. Until then, I can't live or feel anything but what comes from inside.