Returning to the topic of changing people, I would like to add that you adore someone and you get married. So far, so good, and then you see fault in the one you married, and you try to reform your partner in areas that are not yours to take over and remake to suit you. Your desire to make your partner into someone else may hurt your loved one’s heart to the core. No matter how well-intentioned you may be, you may be denying your beloved’s very Being. Who are you to presume to change your loved one’s preferences in life? You may try to take away someone’s very nature. Now we are dealing with the nitty-gritty of life.
When someone is one way, he or she is not another. Each person comes to this world with certain proclivities that belong to the person and not to you. Really, people will change, yet it is not for you to force or speed up change on anyone. In life, you learn what is your jurisdiction, and what is not.
When women go to a spa for a complete make-over, they have chosen to go to the spa. Each person comes into Life on Earth with predilections. Some are quick. Some are slow. Some like solitude. Some are gregarious.
Your friends and loved ones own their lives to live and decide for themselves. Another’s life is not yours to direct. Marriage is not a take-over. You do not want to force-feed another. Nor do you yourself want to be force-fed.
Someone’s basic nature has to be left alone. We are returning to the adage: What is for the goose may not be for the gander. All are made in My image, yet everyone, in terms of the world, is not made the same. This may be news for you, or it may not. Even so, you may jump in, and you and the other pay too high a price for realizing the fact that part of his or her nature is unacceptable to you.
It is guaranteed that your partner is not a perfect person. It is also guaranteed that you are not. It is guaranteed that no one’s standards are the same. If you and your partner grew up next door to each other all your lives, it is, nevertheless, as if you came from different planets. Differences arise.
You ask yourself: “How on Earth will I be able to let go of disrespecting differences and come to accept them?”
Dearly perplexed, the answer is: As best you can.
Easy to say you will leave your partner alone, and not so easy to live up to.
Some people put their socks in the laundry turned inside out while others are determined to turn their socks right side out. This could be a life-long battle. There are some matters that aren’t worth taking a stand on. Some matters cost too much.
Be careful that you do not step on another’s toes. Be careful that you allow freedom to others. Given that kind of freedom, someone may want to please you, yet not everyone is able to keep that up no matter how much they wish they could. By the same token, you may tire of someone’s trying to please you. As much as you can, let other people be.
Which is better or worse? To be a messy person or a nag? If you had to make a choice, which would you choose?
How much giving and love are you able to give others? Life tests you every day of your life. You test your own self as well. It is particulars that often make life difficult for you. The little things. You don’t want your life to become combative. When you put effort into changing another, you are almost certain to pay an endless price and exhort an endless price from the other as well. You do not have the authority to demand changes from another.
Take care with your children as well. Allow them their choices. Guide, support, love, yet not take over their lives as if their lives are yours to do with whatever you want.
Dear Gloria,
Do you mean to write "we" in this sentence Now we are dealing with the nitty-gritty of life.
or should it be written with a capital W?
Thanks.