new(s)

So over the weekend, after months of planning and putting multiple things in place, the Intramuralist & Co. moved into a new home. In other words if you could see me now and take note of my current, domestic surroundings, you would see a box to my left, a box to my right, and a creative selection of odds and ends all in between. Things are a bit more messy at the moment. There’s a ton to untangle and much to unpack, but… all things are “new.”

What is it about “all things new” that attracts us?

A fresh start?
Clean backdrop?
New relationships?
A do over?

An opportunity to change things up?
Do them better?
Learn from past mistakes?

An opportunity, for instance, not to plaster that one last pic or divisive opinion on social media?

There is simply something within the “all things new” idea that is empowering and attractive… that opportunity to start anew.

I’m wondering if we sometimes get into behavioral and ideological ruts — like “this is what I do” or “this is how I think” — and therefore because, “this is how I think, I’m always going to think this way”… as if it what we do and think could never be new.

The challenge, it seems is when we cast those ruts onto another — when we put another into a so-called, stereotypical box. For example… “This is what they do, so they’re always going to do it that way”… “this is how they think”… and the ultimate, “this is who they are.”

In other words, we judge them.
(Granted… it’s pretty easy and convenient to judge…)

But what if our assessment of “them” isn’t accurate?

What if we’re (God forbid) wrong in what we think of them?

What if they’ve grown? … they’ve changed? … and they have found the freedom and freshness of “all things new”?

Hence (in today’s zillion dollar question), what if we could see “them” differently?

My sense is that judgment is clouding our assessment. It’s impeding us from seeing the growth and the good in another. It’s blocking us from fording another the same opportunity we crave — to “do and think” differently — to make “all things new.”

And if it’s blocking us from seeing the good in another, it’s blocking, also, the wisdom in us.

As said by the Chernoffs in “1,000+ Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently,” “When you choose to see the good in others, you end up finding the good in yourself.”

It seems like we’re missing a lot of good…

… in ourselves.

Respectfully…
AR