Potential…
Greeting dear friends & fellow navigators, & welcome to my world this week. One of the hardest lessons life teaches is not everything is yours to understand, fix, or carry. We spend so much of our lives searching for answers. We want closure. We want people to understand us. We want every ending to come with a reason making the pain easier to accept.
However, life does not always work this way. Some people leave without an explanation, quietly fading friendships, & conversations end with more questions. Sometimes the only answer one will ever receive is, “I do not know.” As difficult as this can be, learning to live without every answer is often the beginning of peace.
The more we try to understand every reason, predict every outcome, or control every situation, the heavier life becomes. We replay conversations, look for hidden meanings, & convince ourselves one more explanation will finally make everything easier. Most of the time, it does not do so. Some answers come with time, & some never come at all. Accepting this is not giving up. It is choosing to stop carrying a weight which was never yours.
One realization to change me was understanding I do not have to spend my life trying to change how people see me. There was a time when I believed if I explained myself well enough, people would finally understand me. Life has a way of proving otherwise. Some people hold on to an old version of you. Others decide who you are after one mistake or one conversation. You cannot spend your life correcting every misunderstanding. The people who truly know you will not need constant explanations, & those determined to misunderstand you probably never will.
The same lesson applies to the people we love. Caring about someone does not mean carrying their entire life on your shoulders. You can stand beside someone, encourage them, & hope for the best while accepting their healing is their own responsibility. Not every problem is yours to solve, & not every burden belongs to you. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is step back & allow people to walk their own path, even when it is difficult to watch.
We also have a habit of falling in love with potential instead of reality. We become attached to who someone could be instead of accepting who they consistently show us they are. Potential is beautiful, but it is not a promise. The same thing happens in reverse. People create versions of us from a few moments & believe they know our whole story. Neither of those things is within our control, & trying to change them only leaves us exhausted.
Acceptance does not mean what happened was fair or it did not hurt. It simply means you stop arguing with reality. You stop wishing people had been different or the past had unfolded another way. This is where moving forward begins. Not when everything finally makes sense, but when you stop needing it to.
For your own peace, let some things be. Let people make their own choices. Let time reveal what it needs to reveal. Let closed doors remain closed & let unanswered questions stay unanswered. Not because you stopped caring, but because your peace deserves protecting too.
Some things continue to hurt only because we keep trying to force them into becoming something they were never meant to be. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for you is simply let go & let them be.
Just few observations again dear friends & provide an opinion in my world. Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate your being here. If my journey encourages you also, all is well with my soul.
Looking forward to next week; this is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson with best wishes.
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