My way or the highway

 “There's a right way and a wrong way.” my famous nuns at St Augustine's RC Catholic Primary School in Hythe told me this.  

The right way was the way my parents and the nuns wanted things done. There were a great many rules surrounding the right way for nearly everything, in an attempt to ensure that we got it right, and, when the rules weren't enough to enforce the rightness of our behavior, there were punishments or harsh words at school.  

I have spent a great deal of my adult life learning to deal with the fallout of this type of ingrained thinking, it was actually important once upon a time for emotional survival and physical safety but now is no longer useful in my life.   

There are still some huge blind spots in my view of things, places where I, myself, still expect those around me to conform to my concept of what is right, I was certain my way was perfect and necessary for everyone.  It's easy to believe, because I had found the answer to my own dilemmas, that I could go full steam ahead and solves everyone else's.  Obviously, I had found the one and only right way. 

I come from a place of positive intent, but I was invading other people's lives and suggesting that they might not find their way, without me.  It's as if I didn't trust anyone to find their own answers.

I know and have learnt that these deep rooted judgemental places are within all of us who grew up judged and dependent on the verdict of judgement for safety or survival.  Aspects of my childhood at school seemed harsh sometimes when I was little but looking back as a 39yr old adult it wasn't really.  

During, my school years, in insisting that I knew what was right, I was also saying that everyone else was actually wrong. 

I never wanted to believe the phrase that the ends justify the means because it seemed to me to be so unfeeling of the harm, perhaps irreparable, that could be done to others.  I know of several times that I had been invasive and thrusted myself and my right way onto others that had never asked me. 

I don't think that I ever stopped to consider that my insistence upon my own version of the right way might bring others more hurt than healing nor that my right way, which worked for me, was absolutely wrong for others and that even if it was right, only they could judge that.  

Hopefully, now I have learned that I cannot actually make others believe or live like I do.  I know that I do not own that one true path.  

Each of us make decisions based on personality, belief, values, current circumstance and other factors that are diverse and variable.  None of us can see clearly enough into the life of another person to see all the hows and whys of their living and most importantly anytime I find myself thinking that I can, a warning beacon in my mind goes off. 

I am able now to acknowledge that it is your way and not mine.  I will continue to make the choices and choose the path that leads my way; and I will continue trying to leave others alone to have theirs.