Lately I have been thinking a lot about the grey areas. And getting more comfortable there. Growing up I wanted everything black and white. Good and bad (thanks catholic school). Right and wrong. Most debates had at the core the goal to find the one “truth” or to “win”. If I “lost” the debate I sometimes would change my position. But not out of compassion or empathy but out of a desire to always be on the winning side. Life was all about winners and losers
Then i turned 50. Something changed. Suddenly I had these very unfamiliar desires to actually understand other people. Maybe even to have compassion for other points of view (even if they were wrong and going to hell). It was a shock. I didn’t feel like I had to win every argument. At first this was terribly unsettling. What is the purpose of life of not to win ?
I don’t know where this path is going to go. By no stretch am I over my youthful competitiveness and desire to win. But now there is something else. Something like a desire to get along. To have less stress. To allow others to win sometimes. To sit on the sidelines sometimes. To coach sometimes. To watch the game sometimes. Why do I always have to be a player ?
I am not saying I have found a new path of compassion and am now an enlightened being. Far from it. But what I do have the faintest glimmer of is a desire to understand more and lead a compassionate life.
Going to be interesting where this goes.