A theme has popped up over the last few weeks.  If we want things to change then we need to change, that is a given.  Sometimes that new skin, that new feeling is uncomfortable.  If we had been tainted or given ideas about a particular person, it can be difficult to trust and learn about the real them.  But taking the time to get to know people and see where we are actually similar is interesting.  Sometimes the very people we think we couldn’t stand are the very people we need in our lives.  It’s also interesting to hear another perspective on people who have known each other a long time.  There are multiple sides to every story and I recently was reminded that I need to hear all sides before making a judgement or decision about other people and about who I am.  I always talk about the importance of knowing who we are to make decisions but the truth is that we can’t always know until we are in a specific circumstance.  We don’t know what we are made of until we go through it or expose ourselves to an alternative, face what we fear, etc. 

We can only learn the truth about people by taking the chance and letting them in.  Deciding who someone is without our own interaction with them is wrong.  Talking with new people and creating new feelings and learning to control the emotion opens doors and build bridges.  Life is about more than just about getting done what we need to or about surviving—we need relationships and sometimes those relationships form when we least expect them.  Relationships built on creation rather than competition and sometimes we have to find our own version of someone rather than believe what we are told.  I had an amazing conversation with someone I hadn’t been given the most favorable view of.  And I saw within this person similarities to myself.  The drive, the passion.  And this person was able to take that energy and actually do something with it.  For them to be able to do that and for them to come into my life at this stage while I am in the midst of stepping out on a very steep ledge shows me that it is possible to have a big dream that can seem uncertain, risky even, and that we can make something of it.  That we are meant to take the leap.  Sometimes people come into our lives as a reminder of what we can do.

We can’t know the depths of people if we don’t even scratch the surface.  I’ve had to go against my better judgement with people before and allow myself to be proved wrong, and that has been harder and harder to do as I’ve gotten older.  The cool thing is that every time I’ve been proven wrong I’ve learned something about myself.  I’ve learned that sometimes when we shut people out before we know them, we are missing out on the opportunity to learn something about ourselves as well.  It’s funny that the very things I thought I didn’t like about certain people were the very things I also had within myself.  Not that I was totally denying that I had those traits, but that, like so many things, I repressed those traits thinking they were somehow bad.  There are times we need to keep tight to our boundaries but when our instinct tells us differently than what we have been told, or when we constantly cross paths with certain people, we need to listen.  We have to hear all parts of ourselves and we have to trust our gut—we can’t always rely on someone else’s opinion of the matter because other people’s opinions are always skewed by their experience and beliefs.  Or on anything really, we should always taste it to see the flavor and develop our own perspective.  If I had continued to ignore this person, I’d have missed out on the potential of a real relationship as well as the potential to know myself. Change the story, take the chance, and get to know who we are while we get to know them.