Chance encounter....?
Most of us have been there, anyway those of us who have a conscience and who care about people and try to do right by them. Which frankly is most people I think. Most. Perhaps you've been in the spot where a relationship, be it business, family, marital or just with a friend, has gone terribly wrong. The result is broken feelings, hurt and sadness. Hopefully we do not dwell on these events longer than is necessary to grieve the loss and perhaps consolidate our learning experiences in these matters.
But, I think, most people do wonder what went wrong, where was each party wrong and/or right, in effect what is the truth of the situation; but with human relations things are complicated and multi-dimensional so really there is no solid, one truth. I'm no different than others in wondering these things. I also know that over time the human mind and ego can establish it's own set of truths about events of this sort and I do wonder if the things I've come to believe are based on the facts, or on what I perceive or want the facts to be.
Tonight as I waited in a restaurant for a take-out order to be prepared, a person walked up to me, said "Hi" and asked if I remembered them. We had met only casually once or twice some years ago and as they remined me of the circumstances of our meeting and the reason, it came back to me. The subject of conversaton turned to the common factor in our meeting those years past and as this person spoke about their take on "why" a certain sad situation in my life unfolded as it did, it was as if they had been reading my mind about some of the reasons I had developed as to "why" things had happened as they did.
Honestly, it was rather sad hearing these things, but I did take away some small belief that my reality has some valid truth. And this isn't about right or wrong; right or wrong doesn't matter much in these circurmstances, sadness trumps right or wrong; right or wrong doesn't restore anything. As we say in AA..."Would you rather be right all the time or would you rather be happy".
Most of us have been there, anyway those of us who have a conscience and who care about people and try to do right by them. Which frankly is most people I think. Most. Perhaps you've been in the spot where a relationship, be it business, family, marital or just with a friend, has gone terribly wrong. The result is broken feelings, hurt and sadness. Hopefully we do not dwell on these events longer than is necessary to grieve the loss and perhaps consolidate our learning experiences in these matters.
But, I think, most people do wonder what went wrong, where was each party wrong and/or right, in effect what is the truth of the situation; but with human relations things are complicated and multi-dimensional so really there is no solid, one truth. I'm no different than others in wondering these things. I also know that over time the human mind and ego can establish it's own set of truths about events of this sort and I do wonder if the things I've come to believe are based on the facts, or on what I perceive or want the facts to be.
Tonight as I waited in a restaurant for a take-out order to be prepared, a person walked up to me, said "Hi" and asked if I remembered them. We had met only casually once or twice some years ago and as they remined me of the circumstances of our meeting and the reason, it came back to me. The subject of conversaton turned to the common factor in our meeting those years past and as this person spoke about their take on "why" a certain sad situation in my life unfolded as it did, it was as if they had been reading my mind about some of the reasons I had developed as to "why" things had happened as they did.
Honestly, it was rather sad hearing these things, but I did take away some small belief that my reality has some valid truth. And this isn't about right or wrong; right or wrong doesn't matter much in these circurmstances, sadness trumps right or wrong; right or wrong doesn't restore anything. As we say in AA..."Would you rather be right all the time or would you rather be happy".
