“I AM NOT READY FOR THIS STAGE IN YOUR LIFE,” I internally scream at my Facebook feed upon the news of one of my old friends getting engaged.
I’m starting to get to the point where my peers are starting to pair off and wander into the mysterious realm that is adulthood two by two.
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It’s not my place to say whether or not this is good for them. I have opinions on it, but my opinions should not be a determinant in their lives, and what they think will be good for themselves. In her book Yes Please, Amy Poehler says, "'Good for her! Not for me.' That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me."
Though I felt like Amy Poehler was speaking to me on a spiritual level when she said that, I still have trouble practicing this in real life. When I see someone doing something that I would not do, whether it be something big like getting married or something small like going to church, it’s difficult for me to distinguish between what is best for them, and what I think is best for them.
I do not know where this air of superiority came from, but I do know that I do not like it. Who am I to tell other people what is good for them and what isn’t? What do I know that they apparently do not know? Sure, I’m pretty smart. Sure, I’ve done some cool stuff, seen some cool things. But my experience is not equal to theirs. It is neither better, nor is it worse, it’s different.
Somehow, I’ve developed this self-righteous mindset, and according to the majority of Facebook posts that I see these days, I don’t think I’m the only one who has done so. This is bigger than whether or not I think someone is too young to be getting married. The United States is extremely divided. According to Business Insider, Democrats and Republicans can’t even agree on what problems our government has, let alone how to fix them.
How can we even try to understand one another when we’re so caught up in this delusion of intelligence and superiority?
It’s easy to critique something, but it’s not nearly as easy to come up with a solution to what you’re critiquing. Perhaps instead of criticizing, and jumping to conclusions, we all need to analyze more. When someone makes a decision that we don’t understand or does something that we disagree with, we need to spend more time trying to figure out why they are doing this, rather than instantly assuming that they are in the wrong.
In order to prosper, we have to be united. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we do need to understand what we disagree on, and why we disagree on it. Our own ideas of what we think is best are inhibiting us from greatness.
Let’s free ourselves from our own pride, and let’s make America greater than it already is.
