Tag Archives: belief system

06.03.24
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The Freedom to speak

I have often been taken aback during a conversation with a friend…or for that matter a casual conversation with a stranger…there can be one phrase that will mentally remove me from the conversation as I attempt to define exactly what was said, often as I slowly open a squeaky window into judgement.

During my childhood years, the words or opinions from my parents were soaked in as gospel…perhaps not the canonical gospel….but the absolute last word on the subject. As I matured into my teen years and young adulthood, I was often taken in by the verbiage of others my age…it was new, fresh and helped me sort my opinions about clothes, cars, social and world events. I have often later ruminated about particular conversations that did not feel comfortable within my belief system. I always have the right to release ties to a relationship.

Now many years later, I recognize that I still put value on my friendships by how we relate in opinions. I feel I give and receive a lot of grace as I accept and often absorb other’s values and opinions because I actually never know when there is something new that will change my perspective.

Fast Forward to this morning in 2024, A discussion about the acronym SRO in a book. “He” asked me what I thought it meant and I said “School Resource Officer” which came from my many years working in the law enforcement community. “He” looked it up to find the definition SRO as “Standing Room Only” which was obviously the context. It’s so much healthier to acknowledge, to learn perspectives from others. There are always going to be contrasts. WE have all lived different moments and built our individual belief systems. Thus the steadfast arguments revolving around abortion, legal euthanasia, race and religion! It’s not my job to agree or change anyones mind, it is my job to allow a difference of opinion in the moment and understand that life lessons will either harden or open the mind to a new way of thinking.

and so it is…..

05.18.15
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That feeling you get when you realize OH CRAP…what have I been doing.

That was an intended pun…btw

For the sake of total transparency here….I have not been one that closes the toilet lid before I flush the toilet.  There are those members of my family *cough – daughters who have tried to educate me to the facts of toilet spray. ya ya ya.

My standard operating procedure for after shower habits is to step from the shower, reach around the corner and grab the towel, dry my face and wrap the towel around my hair and then drip dry on the carpet just to irritate him.  Before I step out of the “water closet”, I usually reach over and grab a wad of toilet paper and blow my nose.  WHAT HAVE I BEEN THINKING?  I don’t know why it has never occurred to me that this is just disgusting…but I can top that.  I’ve done it in public restrooms before too….I don’t shower in them but I have been known to grab a piece of toilet paper and blow my nose.

I recently listened to a TED podcast about “when things are not what we have always thought them to be”  I’ll paraphrase this to the best of my ability..but the one that got me was the David and Goliath story.  We always use that story to analogize the little guy taking on the giant.  When actually.  David was not just your average little guy.  He was actually an expert with the thing-a-ma-gig used during military battle to heave a stone at the enemy – when the aim was right and the real victim was hit by this rock it had the same effect as being shot with a .45.  And to even mess this story up a little bit more …it is possible that Goliath was a huge man with a tumor on his pituitary which made him slow and lumbersome with bad eye sight which is never good in battle…thus his comment to the opposition – you plan to treat me like a dog with your two sticks or whatever he really said!

Like many other things we have been told and believe, we don’t really have a credible eye witness to this event – and I don’t really care one way or the other whether it is true…but the lesson to be learned here is that our beliefs should be our own…what we see, what we learn, what we research and mull over until we know what we believe and not what we have been told to believe.  We need to be the shepherd and not the sheep who follow each other just because they don’t know any better.

….and with that being said.  Close the toilet seat before you flush…I hope I have convinced you!

Until next time….