Sometimes peace and joy takes face talk or walk?

Peace & Joy —When to Talk & When  to Walk

A few days ago I popped a video into this blog and wrote about how ”acceptance is not surrender.”  This was a very  hard  concept  for me to grasp for a long time…. I mean it’s like going to Verizon right now and insisting on a flip phone without a camera… my attitude was a bit outdated given my life experiences.  So, I sort of wanted to continue this theme  at least one more time.   

Let’s face it most times  when we are least peaceful and joyful is when we are looking for or in  an argument or have just left one.  Rarely  do both or all parties walk away after an argument  saying “good talk..I’m glad you changed my mind.”  I can count the times  that has happened to me on one  hand without  using any fingers, however sometimes after such chats I have used  one finger to respond.  Be that as it may, let’s move this conversation forward.

First of all, if you have to … and I mean just have to have it out with someone remember the words of Eleanor Roosevelt who said something like— “Smart people discuss ideas-less smart people talk about events—-and well those who are less smart  yet talk about people.  So if you are going to persuade  someone I think that is a good thing to  remember.  Changing  minds  usually doesn’t go well if  the process starts with a personal attack.  Keep it at the idea level as best  you can.  The second  way to keep these deals more peaceful is to  say we  may  not need to come to a decision on this right now.. but we need to start a talk about it.   That way we don’t need to leap to the opposite corner right away even if that’s where it might be headed

Finally sometimes the best talk is not to have one at all.  From time to time  you just have to express that this is not the time for  hashing things out… Sometimes  people need  space and they need it right  now.  At this point  if you can  be perceptive  it is often best to allow the space to happen so that things can bend but not break.  

Peace and Joy  require  some  flexibility and so we should aim at not breaking things unless we plan on leaving them  for …well possibly  forever.  

Anyway  I am popping in a song my brother and I sort of created  yesterday.  His emotions  prompted the  lyrics and my mind has been in that place before so I chopped this together and  am sharing it today. 

Enjoy.

NEW COMMENTS: 

The current culture seems to push people to declare their unending loyalty to people and ideas.  If it is possible in 2020 maybe we can start asking each other to declare that we will seek various sources of information, be willing to try to re-examine our ideas regularly, and make the effort to check back with others regarding their values and ideas instead of placing them in a box and leaving them there.  Assume people are complex and  will experience change in spite of anything we might say or do.  In short work harder to understand. An idea than to control a person who may hold it.  If you have to  experience some silence  to allow the other person to change or moderate—it is worth. Your time and peace and joy. Is probably  worth the wait.  

Let 2020 be a time of new ideas and new connections.  Peace.