When you listen to people talking, sometimes, you can hear the “train wreck” in the plans and choices they make. After a certain age, people should be left to make their own decisions and their personal mistakes.
Knowing that someone is taking a risk, you have a few choices:
- Give your opinion and then back off.
- Give your opinion…over and over again. Better known as “nagging”. Or in the world of DramaGuru, the Creepy Wally attack.
- Ignore it. Say nothing and hope for the best. Also known as Ostrich position.
Practice allowing people (adults) to make their own choices without your intervention.
(Personally, I may need to write that out 500 times before it really sinks in and I follow my own advice. New habits take time.)
How much you control is dependent on the person’s willingness to be controlled by you.
What’s in your blind spot? What have you been ignoring?
At some point, trying to control them takes more of your energy. You start focusing on the other person more than you focus on your own problems. It can become a virtuous way of ignoring your own problems.
Those ignored problems take up space in your blind spot.
What looks like dumb moves to you, reflect a different choice that might, eventually, lead to the right place for that person. Not the right place for you, of course. Each person is given a life path and a Doomsday clock.
Best Advice? Manage your own Doomsday clock.
“The best laid plans are soon undone.” paraphrase of Robert Burns quote
Vigilance is the state of being watchful or alert for danger or some other kind of trouble. This means that your guard is up all the time, speeding up your ticker and churning through your Doomsday clock minutes.
Vigilant suggests intense, unremitting, wary watchfulness.
Vigilante: a member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate.
Waste of time!
Constant “guard up” position guarantees health problems for you and on-going difficulties in your relationships.
Acting like a “vigilante” means that you take action to block, stop or intervene because you think no one else will.
Trust Plan
Give up the role of acting like you are God in other people’s lives. It’s not your responsibility to change their minds or direct their steps. You are not their Lord and Master. You are not the Clock Maker.
Hey Nosy! Please keep your nose out of other people’s business. Allow adults to make their own mistakes.
Treasure the people, around whom, you can take your guard down.
During Covid, when you feel comfortable taking your mask off, you take a risk.
But, at least the hyper-vigilance can relax for a short while.
If just thinking about certain people makes your guard go up (you feel tense), put some distance between you and them. Accept your need for peace and allow the adults to do whatever it is they’re going to do — with or without your advice or opinions.
Trust that you are making the right choice.
Deccan Herald: “Allison Byington, who lives in South Dakota, said her mother recently called her a murderer for refusing to wear a face mask. ‘We don’t have a relationship anymore,’ Byington said.
Byington’s mother, Jeannie Ammon, said she is simply trying to keep herself, her husband and an ailing, oldest daughter alive. She said her youngest daughter had unfriended her on Facebook.”
DramaGuru Grandiose Attack: The impact of being insulting is a disruption in your relationship. Is it worth it?
DramaGuru Relationships: Lyoto Drinks Pee Sweep. Gain a new perspective. Look at the situation through someone else’s eyes. What’s their real goal Learn something new.
When you turn the situation upside down, what is revealed that you didn’t see before?
Source:
1 America, 1 Covid-19 pandemic, 2 realities in South Dakota and New Mexico:
Taking the piss: a brief history of athletes drinking their own urine
Woman holding book to her face photo by Natasha Brazil on Unsplash
Thug Nana wearing mask photo by Peri Stojnic on Unsplash
Little girl wearing mask photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Woman wearing black mask photo by Trevor Buntin on Unsplash
Dictionary definitions from merriam-webster.com
DramaGuru Relationships cards designed by Cheryl Ragsdale
The game I call Demon Spotting developed over time as I worked through emotional entanglements and confusing break-ups. My misery became code words. Code words became mat drills. Mat drills became winning combinations. And my confusion lifted. Consider this your invitation to play. Clarity is freedom.