Take A Deep Breath And Start Again

I mess up a lot. I fail quite often. I get uncomfortable making small talk and often say stupid things. I make a lot of mistakes. I don't have my shit together. I have started a lot of things I haven't finished. I have trouble keeping with an exercise plan. I become frustrated, angry, disappointed, sad, bitter and fed up, sometimes all in the same day. I look back at my life and wish I had done some things differently. I think about my past and feel guilty for things I did. I allow fear to keep me from doing things. I become cynical and sarcastic way too easily. I do a lot of things wrong. I procrastinate. I don't always give my all.

I have a life I am proud of. I get to go to work each day and help animals and people have better lives. I have the ability to make changes in my life and stick with them when I need to. I have amazing people around me who don't care about the first paragraph. When I fail, I get back up. I wake up every morning knowing the day is a fresh start to do new things. I try to incorporate what I write about into my life, even when I am not always perfect at doing it. I accept the fact I have done stupid things in the past and forgive myself for doing them. I try to overcome fear whenever I can. I work hard. I am constantly learning new things.

I'm not an expert in how to live life anymore than any of you are. I have done a lot of things and I have faced a lot of hardships, but I am still learning and growing each and every day. I'm going to continue to make mistakes and fail and say stupid things. I am going to do things I am not proud of. I'm also going to succeed and do things right and say smart things. I am going to do things I am proud of.

I have to give myself some credit and cut myself some slack. I have to learn. I have to try. I have to accept and embrace change. I have to put in the work. I have to get up when I fall. I have to try to live each day a little better than the day before. I have to take a deep breath and start again.

Be Curious, Not Judgmental

Take a minute and think about something really stupid you have done. For all of us, this should be really easy. I know I have done tons of stupid things in my life and I could come up with way more than I would like. How would you like to be continually judged for this stupid thing? How would you like others to spread around what you did to other people, some you know and some you don't, who would also judge you by this stupid thing? 

My guess is you would hate it. You would think it was unfair and wish people wouldn't judge you by one stupid thing you did. We all would. Knowing this, why do we continue to judge other people based on a stupid thing we know they did? If it is something we wouldn't want to happen to us, why do we continue to do it to others? Quit being so damn judgmental.

We all make mistakes. We all do things that are incredibly stupid. Every one of us has something in our past we would be happy to forget. We learn from what we have done and become better because of these lessons. Would we prefer to not do some of these stupid things? Of course we would, but we can't change the past and just have to move forward while learning what we can.

For some reason, we have a hard time letting other people do this. When they do something we consider stupid, we have a hard time letting it go. It may because we want to believe we are better or smarter than these people and we think judging them will make us feel better about ourselves. The truth is, when we constantly judge other people, we don't feel better about ourselves and we look like big assholes. We like to think we would have done something different and better in the same circumstances, but we really don't know because we haven't been there. Your judgment assumes you know everything and you don't.

We are going to do something stupid. Hell, we'll probably do lots of stupid things in the time we have left. Knowing this, we have to remember to not judge other people for the things they do. When you see someone else being judgmental, call them on it. Think about how much better you would feel if you weren't being judged by the people around you. If you would feel better, wouldn't other people feel better if you weren't judging them? It's simple really, just quit being so damn judgmental.