Taking The Higher Road...

If I have learned anything in my life, is that deciding to take the Higher Road when dealing with sticky situations, is NEVER easy, and some times just down right SHITTY!

The biblical saying of turn the other cheek sucks too, but it is true. Taking the higher road is also true and as I have found, to be very necessary.

I don't remember learning this in kindergarten, which would have been a great thing to know and do between then and the rest of one's life. But for whatever reason it was not quite as an important subject as learning one's ABCs or playing well with others. But it seems it sure would have helped in learning how to play with others if this specific lesson could have been learned. Oh well...

But the many times I have had to AND chosen to...taking the higher road...is so that there could peace in my chaotic life, peace within my soul that I was doing the right thing, peace in knowing that the situation could then take the next smaller steps it needed in being resolved, and then peace in knowing that god called me to make amends even when I didn't/don't want to or would rather had chosen an alternate route or completely ignored the damn situation.

But it also seems, to me anyways, that in having taken the higher road, it has also caused some great amount of my pride to be extinguished and shaken up so that the other side would be appeased. And I know this is part of remaining with god and his promise for my life. To heed one's selfish soul by bowing down, literally, one's self in the presence of the other(s) so that they see that I have relinquished any prideful absurdity and ill thoughts and feelings toward them or the situation. Man! This pride thing is really crappy in any one's life and to be able to literally bow down and relinquish that position, even in the presence of god, for me it remains to be a step in the right direction. No matter how much it hurts in the process of doing it.

Honestly, I can say that there have been a few minor times where I have chosen to take the higher road, not out of some self-righteous position, but because I just couldn't stand it anymore. The situations just deemed themselves so outrageous that it made no more sense than putting a gun to one's head. But still I did it, and still see it as that's just what I did no real reason per se.

But all the other times I have literally made the conscious choice to take the higher road because it made sense and it rang true with my idea of god's meaning for my life. To lay down one's life of pride so that the other could be made higher and sheltered from the harsh wind and rain. Though to say I've done it for this reason, does not discount the emotional side effects that come with doing so. There is/are still times when those feelings of wanting to be selfish and not have done it at all come into play, or it has brought up a sense of unfairness (sometimes great) that comes with the 'rights to my life', or it has the ill side effects that linger because the situation has not been fully settled, or the attachments of why the other person(s) couldn't see that I had done this for them (for us/situation) so that we then can move on. So, as one can see...taking the higher road is not always what it is cracked up to be. But I know from my experiences, that I would not be willing to go back in time and make changes to those situations, because in doing so would only have held me back from becoming the person that god has called me to be and desires me to become.

If I had chosen not to take the higher road:
- I would still have a very difficult relationship with my mom
- I would have very few close friends, thus very few real friends, but lots of acquaintenances only
- My marriage would not have lasted as long or as well as it has
- I would be a very angry person with no interest in resolution(s)
- I would be compromisng who god called me to be
- I would have remained just as controlling, just as manipulative and unwilling to allow others to be forthcoming
- I would probably would have held on to my resentments, my selfhishness, and my uselessness for others

I'm sure there is so much more that would have prevented me from growing, maturing, understanding and letting go that which I never had any control of in the first place.

I am thankful that I, yet again, learned a huge and valuable lesson in life. Sometimes I lose sight of this-that I am still an evolving creature-and thus each new lesson(s) learned and put into action only allows for greater understanding of myself, my past, future and those that come in and out of my life.

I thank god for seeing these things in me, through his eyes. Cause sometimes the only things I see in my eyes are self-deprecating images of what I don't want to be or already am.

Thank you god for helping me become who I am suppose to be becoming.