It’s real easy to point a finger at something my brain says doesn’t seem right in this world. There are lots of things around me everyday that I notice don’t seem to add up in a fair sense.
Here are just a few of them:
1. People speeding up rather than letting a car in that’s trying to emerge
2. People whispering at meetings about things they heard about someone else
3. Seeing on the news another shooting and more talk about gun control
4. So many blaming the president for the woes of our nation
5. Noticing yet another reality show that highlights the craziness of yet another family
6. Watching person after person go by a homeless person who’s hand is outstretched and receiving nothing
7. Hearing about how it’s unfair that athletes earn so much money
8. People saying one thing to the masses and then doing another
9. Churches stating they are all-welcoming but rejecting people from various backgrounds
10. Criminals get away with light sentences for serious crimes because they have money to get a good lawyer
The list really could go on and on. Here’s the reality. With just about every judgement that I place out there and every finger that I point at the ills of this world, I am guilty on some level of doing those same exact things.
Let me get back to the list but answer them from my deepest truths.
1. Many times I’ve sped up on the highway when I saw someone merging in to “beat them out” or to “be first” because “I was there first”.
2. I lost track of the number of times that I have gossiped to someone else about a person that relapsed on their addiction or that was doing such and such behavior.
3. I’ve been to a gun range and been friends with people who loved to sport their guns and gun licenses.
4. I’ve shouted at the TV or to a friend many times about how the president was crappy and causing this problem and that problem.
5. I’ve thought about how a reality show on my life would be better than what I see being put in the airwaves.
6. I’ve ignored homeless people when I had a dollar in my public judging that that would just spend it on alcohol or drugs.
7. I earned large sums of money in jobs years ago where I wasn’t really doing much of anything except dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.
8. I’ve stood up on a podium in meetings and spoken about how wonderful my life was and how good I was to everything and everyone and outside of those meetings, was swearing often, lying regularly, and living in other addictions day to day.
9. I’ve been a member of different types of groups such as my fraternity that rejected people for the way they looked, the way they acted, their lifestyle, and more.
10. I was arrested for stealing a long time ago and because my father had money and was able to afford a good lawyer, “it went away”.
The truth is that it’s easy for me to look at the misfortunes of society and comment negatively on any of it. It’s easy to do it because on some level I’m guilty of what I’m condemning.
I look at all these things now. When I find myself judging someone or something, I look in the mirror and ask myself where have I been guilty of this. I’m a firm believer that anytime I feel negative towards something outside of me or anytime I point the finger at someone else that I think is living sideways, I need to look within and see what is it about myself that I don’t like or that I haven’t dealt with.
All of those things I listed above I work on today and ask God for guidance on. Here’s that list one last time.
1. I drive much slower on the highway or on any road today and I try to allow a car to merge in when I see them attempting to do so.
2. I stay away from gossip as best as I’m capable. I stay away from people that live in that mode.
3. I stay away from guns, I don’t support guns, and I don’t have any friends who have guns or carry guns. I don’t even play games that are “shoot ’em up” type games. I’m even beginning to not like going to the movies and seeing over the top gun based violence movies.
4. The President is a figure head. There are many people that are part of how laws and legislation get passed. Because the nation is a certain way, trickles down all the way to me and I know that any woes of the nation is due to all of us and not just one person. I admire any president for standing firm in all of that attack they get daily from people angry with the state of the nation.
5. I don’t watch any of those reality shows anymore about any family. I don’t expose myself to those types of programs that highlight the things some might find as silly or crazy. My life is crazy enough sometimes and it’s a reality show just to live it. I don’t find a need to see it on TV too.
6. If I have a dollar bill in my wallet, I will give it to a homeless person. If I have some loose change, I’ll give it to a homeless person. I could be that homeless person one day. How they spend that dollar or whatever sum I was to give them, is between themselves and God.
7. I learned that the more money I earn, the more I seem to spend and the more I seem to spend the more I need more money. All I felt towards athletes was jealously that I no longer had large sums of money that they are earning. Truthfully, I don’t watch sports anymore on TV and I traditionally don’t go to sporting events. Money isn’t ruling my life currently like it used to.
8. What I say at a meeting today is the exact way that I live my life outside of a meeting. I do not live two separate lives anymore.
9. Anything that I am a member of now or any group that I take part in, I am open about my lifestyle and I am open that I accept everyone equally. If there is any hesitancy to accepting that or me, I do not go to those places.
10. I haven’t committed a crime since my drinking and drugging days for starters. And, I also realized that I don’t know all the truths to any crime that I see on the news or in the papers. I’m just hearing the news’s side of things. So anything I may say is just my own judgement of what’s being presented to me.
The bottom line is that for every finger I’ve pointed at someone or something else that I didn’t like in my life, I need to point that same finger if not all of my fingers back at myself. The more that I work through my judgements and negativity, and the more that I look within and ask God for guidance, the more I find myself accepting all of these things.
It really is true that when I point a finger, I’m guilty of something related to that within myself. By asking God for guidance on revealing those things, I have seen a much greater level of peace in my life towards everything and everyone.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur