"Make it your habit not to be critical about small things."
-- Edward Everett Hale
This is the best place to begin to make a whole life change of moving from a critic to an artist. I used to get tweaked by the most mundane of things, such as friends, family or co-workers not doing things the "right" way. Of course, my way was THE right way. After all, I had been taught that there is the right way and the wrong way and there wasn't really any in between.
As long as I believed I was right, it was then impossible for others to comply because they were always saying their way was right and so there was this debate about the right and the right and the right and the right. We would even write about the right and lobby about the right and politicize about the right. There was the religious right and the right of this and that, the bill of rights and the right wing.
Everywhere I looked there were people with rights and many were plenty vocal about their points of view about how right their right was compared to the rights of the others who were somehow misinformed, poorly educated, came from ignorant families, or were just plain self-righteous, which we all abhor.
Of course, I was almost always right and would be so reluctant to admit any not-rightedness. You could say I was right about everything. I was especially right about things that already happened because it gave justification for my rightedness when it was so clear that I was right all along and everyone else was just plain wrong.
I knew the right way to everything.
And that led me to be increasingly unhappy and unsatisfied. No matter how right I was or how justified I could be or how much I verified that I was right, it just didn't feel good anymore because I was so often alone in my rightedness. That's not the same as self-righteous, but I've been that too.
I had only one simple choice: Allow others to be right. Give up my own rightedness, and allow others to have all of my rightedness and keep their own at the same time. I just had to let it all go.
So, I saw this phrase: "There is no right way. There is your way, my way and their way." And, I started thinking deeply about that profound statement. I decided that there just had to be more than one right way, otherwise I would be forever depressed and deprived--and alone. So, I stopped being right so much. I did it a little at a time, but kept going and being less and less right, while allowing my opinion only.
You know what? It worked like magic. It still works like magic every day and it grows and grows. Becoming less critical was only achieved by allowing others to be right. There is no right way. There is your way, my way and their way.
Your Way May Be Far More Interesting Than Mine.
Spread Some Joy Today--Watch what happens when you begin allowing others to not only be right, but to tell them how smart they are about that and build them up in their rightedness. It's like a magic potion. Try it. You'll see!
