Hey, hello Sunshine. And how have you been? How has your week been? You know, the other day I was reading a very interesting book in which one of the characters claimed to only see things in black and white. Okay, and I don’t mean colour. What I meant is, for him, everything in his life had to be either this way or that. It was either right or wrong.
And if I really think about it, aren’t most of us also sometimes at least claiming these things to others when we talk to them? Don’t we also think of ourselves as black and white type of people? You know, so many times if you play, if you notice in a conversation or when we’re talking to someone, we’ll say, look, it’s either a yes or a no. It’s either that I want to do it or I don’t.
I’m either in or out. And so many of us, without noticing, end up taking these kind of stances. Not realizing that there are times when we take a lot of decisions which may not be a this or a that or a yes or a no.
Sometimes we may have to compromise, sometimes we may have to come to terms with what’s going on around us and understand that there is something to be said about living in the grays, in the middle. And this is particularly true when it comes to situations and sometimes people that we don’t understand.
You know, a small example, you ask someone who’s gone, say, to eat a meal at a restaurant that has been trending for some time and is probably listed as one of the top 10 most trending spots in your city to eat at. And you ask them, how did you like the food? How did you like the place?
pay close attention, the answer will be either it was absolutely fantastic or they’ll say it was absolutely terrible. Polar opinions, right? And this is the truth about life as well. About people as well. Because generally speaking, if you look around you, people are not usually completely good or completely bad or totally right or totally wrong.
You know, because we are human beings and we’ve been gifted with a certain level of intelligence, we are constantly, by nature, we try to make sense of our environments. We tend to judge others based on our own preconceived notions and biases, which may or may not be correct. And most of the times, it’s not correct.
Sometimes whatever we believe to be true about a situation is probably grey as well. It’s not black and white. We tend to look at things from our own perspective.
Because in reality, most of the things that happen to us really have nothing to do with us at all. You know, it could be that, you know, somebody is having a party and they’ve decided not to invite you for the party. Now, we don’t really know the reasons why they operated at that level when they were taking a decision or when they were making that guest list, right? It may not have been anything to do with you. It’s a personal decision. Maybe they just wanted a limited number of people at that venue.
Maybe they wanted to celebrate it with people they’re extremely close to. And maybe you’re not one of those who’s extremely close to them. And sometimes even in your workspace, someone may have to take a business decision and may have to leave you out of a meeting, for example, or an outing.
It has a lot to do with the person making the choice rather than us. And so we need to learn to embrace the grace. Because it’s the grace where most of us live and where everything happens. And it’s usually not as good or bad or as concrete as we think. You know, we people are a mix of all things, positive and negative. And that’s what makes all of us interesting, isn’t it?
Situations are the same way. You know there are so many factors that go into every choice or scenario. We cannot possibly be aware of all of them particularly when we are not the ones in control and very often that’s the case. Understand that there are so many layers to any given situation and there is never any one explanation to the way things are.
Or there is no just one particular way of getting your work done. And so it’s time to do away with this black and white thinking in many situations. Now it doesn’t mean that if someone has done something wrong and you take a stance that you’re wrong. No, it’s okay to be black and white in some situations. But it is very important to embrace the grace.
You know when you don’t understand a particular situation and you feel you’re stressing about it, ask questions. And never ever stress about things or people that are out of your control. Learn to step outside of the black and white. You know the best piece of advice I learnt many years ago
was when someone told me, the world isn’t black or white, it’s a lot of different shades of grey. And I’m going to leave all of you with a very interesting quote. It says, when you reduce life to black and white, you never see the rainbows.
Here’s to each one of you having a wonderful week ahead. And here’s to each one of you learning to pause every time you think you’re about to take an extreme decision without understanding the situation. Have a great week everyone and we’ll speak to you again next week. Bye for now.
