You Can’t Make Them Understand
But you can be understanding and have an impact that way.
People can change. But only if they desire to. When they don’t, they won’t.
Sometimes you’re forced to change. Circumstances utterly outside of your control force change. A fire burning your home to the ground changes where you live, getting fired or laid off changes where you work, being dumped changes who you have a relationship with, and the like.
You can’t do jack shit about these. They happen, and they are outside of your control. Intellectually you know this. The heart, however, is quick to disbelieve.
Change can be terrifying, especially when the other side is incredibly uncertain. You have a choice here, whether the change is of your own making or happenstance. Be afraid and resist from there – or – be reasonable and learn what you can do and what it means.
On the grand scale of the United States – and the world, really – change has been sweeping over everyone at a surreal pace for the past century. From post-WWI to now, the amount of change the world has seen is truly astounding. The tech you’re reading this on, and the related connectivity, were only fictional just a hundred years ago. Tons of things and conveniences you take for granted were not common in any way, not so long ago.
The way people work and what it means is utterly different. Factory work and other labor of that sort that was dominant is now a huge minority. While some have been equipped to embrace and roll with this truth, many have not. While some of this is generational, too much of it is situational. Those of us not living that don’t fully understand, and vice versa.
The weaponization of fear
Fear can be a helpful tool. When your life is in danger and you run because of fear, that can be a game changer. Life and death are one thing. Intangibles like missing out, not having enough, and the like, are quite another.
Much of the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency in the world today are utterly artificial. They’re totally bullshit, made up by some – entity, person, business, government, whatever – to evoke fear. Then, when people are afraid, they’re more likely to look outside of themselves for answers, help, and support. Especially when this is an intangible and not life or death.
Thus, following both World Wars and the Cold War, fear has been dominating society for over a century.
Much of this has focused on “them”. “They” are some “other” taking your jobs, way of life, threatening your safety, money, potential, freedom, and/or the like. The “other”, the “them” changes. In the 1930s and 40s, it was the Nazis. From the 1950s until the 1990s, it was the communists. In the early 2000s, it was the Muslims.
Other groups have been the “other” or “them” during all of this. Usually because of progress and the changes it creates. This includes women, liberals, gays (LGBTQA+), blacks (POC), and anyone else opening inclusivity and fomenting change.
This has led to some of the deepest divides, without open war, in a very long time. Arguably the most contentious election in the history of the United States is underway, and it’s making matters worse and more challenging. Fear has been weaponized by both sides to move the masses to take action.
This has created a depth of misunderstanding being widened almost daily. No matter what either side does to convince the other they’re right or wrong, you can’t make them understand.
You can’t make them understand
Let me state here and now that I’m liberal AF. I believe that equality is for everyone, women’s rights are human rights, nobody is illegal, Black Lives Matter, love is love, science is real, and more. Nobody is better than anyone else, though everyone has things they’re good at and things they’re bad at. It doesn’t make anyone more worthy than anyone else.
It’s clear to me that one side of this coming election is all about obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. Sadly, I know they feel the same about the other side – obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. A complicit media and almost four decades of brazen greed and hyper-consumerism don’t help.
Worst of all, perhaps, is that you can’t make them understand. Funny thing is, they feel the same about you, too. You can’t make them understand.
It’s infuriating when you see injustice and can’t do much about it. Attend the protest, make calls, write letters, send emails, and for the love of exercising your civic duty vote in elections. Sadly, that’s the extent of the actions you can take.
When you believe you have logic, scientific fact, and reason on your side – and the opposition appears hell-bent on disregarding it for what you can’t understand – it’s frightening. How did we get here after all the advances of the past century?
Backlash to some degree. The weaponization of fear to another. People indoctrinated into religions, and faux competition between the labor workforce and the service workforce is yet another. Combined, this is a powerful brew of fear and uncertainty that smells like poison to one side but an elixir of life to the other.
Try though you might, you can’t make them understand.
So what the hell can you do?
Be understanding
I’m not in any way saying to accept things that make your skin crawl, your heart sink, and anger flare. That’s not what I mean by recommending that you be understanding.
What I am getting at here is all about you and yourself. The only person who you can make understand is you.
I thoroughly dislike that I can’t make them understand. How can they not see the awfulness, the denial of things they’d never accept for themselves, lies, and deception? Trouble is, they feel exactly the same. They can’t make me understand and see it the way that they do, either.
I could focus a ton of my time and energy on them. There has to be a way to make them understand, right? Reason, logic, science, something?
There’s something more to consider. Will that change anything about your life? Will getting them to understand what they don’t impact you? Arguably, yes, when you keep them from making laws or taking actions that destroy this democracy. Yet how can you know that? What if what you believe to be true, what you understand, turns out to be wrong?
The only way you can address this at all is to be understanding. Understanding of yourself. You, and only you, know your mind. You’re the only one capable of knowing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what intentions you have, your positive or negative approach, and your actions or inactions. They can’t do that for you just as much as you can’t do that for them.
Stop working on the things outside of you, yourself, and your understanding so hard. Don’t ignore them, don’t disregard them, but stop making them the focus of your actions. Be more self-understanding, and work on that which you can and do control.
You.
This is not selfish
What you can do for the world around you is limited. You have no control over anyone or anything else. If you don’t believe me, have you ever tried to get a cat to play fetch? A dog to stop eating another dog’s poop? A friend from going on that date you know will end in disaster?
You can’t make them understand. This is a frustrating, infuriating, annoying truth. Sometimes you still have to try. That’s worthwhile, in part for your own peace of mind, and in part because you desire better for others.
You can’t make them understand. You can be understanding, but mostly only of and for yourself. This is not selfish. Working with and from this is empowering.
When you are better grounded and more self-understanding you tend to be more centered. This tends to make you more peaceful overall. When others see that, you become a beacon of light in the dark. They desire to know how you did it. How can that possibly be selfish?
It’s not. You can’t make them understand, but you can show them how you’re understanding yourself. The empowerment that comes from that can be spread with little effort. When someone you care about feels joy, you also feel joy, don’t you?
This is not selfish because you care about how it might appear. If you care, then it can’t be selfish. Selfishness means not giving a shit about the impression you make or the consequences of actions you do or don’t take on/ towards others.
No, you can’t make them understand. But working with your own understanding can open lots of potential and possibilities that might open others you can’t otherwise reach. Even if that’s not so, you get to live better, experience better – and isn’t that thoroughly worthwhile?
Recognizing that you can’t make them understand isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you can’t make them understand, you can shift your focus to more productive things. Knowing that you can be more self-understanding, and open yourself to being better grounded, centered, balanced, and aware by understanding yourself better, you can give that more time and energy.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and forty-second (543) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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