I'm not sure what to blog about, so I'm going to ramble. This isn't necessarily out of the ordinary, right? First of all, I've been thinking about some positive qualities I'd like to develop related to a quote in that Maryknoll magazine I mentioned for Independence Day about different ways of looking at people. Basically, the story was about a missionary priest of a village feeling obligated to do something to punish a parish member who had divorced or otherwise cheated on his wife for another woman. The rest of the community, although in no way approving of the unfaithfulness of the man, felt little inclination to ostracizing or otherwise punish "the adulterer". The priest learned that his parish members took a holistic view of the man, weighing his contributions to society over his personal shortcomings and spiritual crimes, while he himself was fixated on the negative. WWJD? Obviously, it depends on circumstances and consequences.
My take on this is more general. While pessimism is a terrible philosophy in general, optimism isn't necessarily the cure. The priests parish members didn't necessarily try to just look for the good in a person, so much as looking at the whole picture. To do that, one should merely control their emotions. If something about someone really bothers me, I tend to get fixated on it and allow it to irrationally dominate my impressions of him/her, masking positive qualities. And, having heard the Dalai Lama talk last Sunday, emotion, be it love or hatred (yes, strong word) cripples reason. My original hope for myself, however, was indeed to look for the best in people--to see their potential and help them realize it, even if they don't see it themselves.
SOURCE: Procrastination : /
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