There is a quote by Anaïs Nin that has made a deep impression on me:
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
What shapes who we are and how we see the world? When we receive love in our lives, we learn to see things with love. If the people charged with caring for us have patience, we learn to be patient.
We embark on this journey of life with the guidance of the people who love us. It's not all plain sailing. Paths may diverge at some point. Some of us will have the comfort of knowing that their ways were our ways. Some of us will not.
All is not lost.
We are not islands and develop relationships outside our homes. Some of us are daring and and will embrace new ways, changing some deeply ingrained views given to us by our parents. Some of us can't make that leap and feel more comfortable with familiar values, even when we suspect they're not really our own values.
Who we are and how we see the world is not set in stone. Throughout our own journeys we see many different paths, we are shown different ways by people who have visited that junction before. They may be the right paths for us, or they may lead to disaster.
The beauty of life is being able to retrace our steps and take a different route. We may invite others to accompany us down a certain path, but sometimes they're not ready or are a bit too far behind. Sometimes we are not ready ourselves and have to cover some ground before following certain trails.
There are many obstacles along the way and many people trying to lure us into the wrong route. Patience, conviction and past travels may help us jump through many hurdles and steer clear of people we recognize as agents of discord, hellbent on putting us on the wrong road.
Yes, life is a journey and can't be rushed. All our travels, detours and sometimes backtracking, will change how we see things in the world. But we have to be prepared to accept that we have not always followed the right road. We may have been lazy and taken some shortcuts.
We can change direction and we can help other people change. We can share stories about our own journeys and invite others to see things differently, to take a different route.
Whether we succeed or not, it's worth the effort. The more we share, the more likely we are to see things they way we all are, the more likely we are to see things clearly and take this journey together, despite all our differences.
