You Get to Decide
A big part of the human experience is almost constant exposure to what others think of us, believe we need, and believe we should do.
Imagine life as a cute quaint little town, and we are the villagers passing through the streets, each holding our own basket. We only know what is in our own basket and cannot see what others have in theirs. Interacting with each other is inevitable, and there is a strong possibility those we interact with will want to put something from their basket into ours. We don’t know what they are holding until they show us, and we may not even want it, but with each interaction we receive from each other.
We often have no control who we interact with and definitely cannot control what they put in our basket. What we can control is what we do with whatever they have placed in our basket. We get to decide if it is treasures or trash. What we do with these items is entirely up to us, we get to decide if we keep this thing for the rest of our lives, keep it for a little while, or toss it aside immediately.
These items put in our basket by our fellow villagers can take the form of unsolicited advice or ideas, all based on the lived experience of the villager who put it there. The treasures are the ideas, compliments, and advice we want to internalize and the trash are everything else we deem unwelcome in our internal landscape.
We have the power to decide if what we have been handed is treasure or trash. It is our duty to know ourselves well enough to recognize the difference, for we risk disposing of treasure believing it to be trash.
Likewise, as the keeper of our internal landscape, we do not need to accept trash disguised as treasure and do not want to toss aside treasures (like compliments) mistaking them for trash because we believe they are untrue. Hold onto them for awhile because they may be what your soil needs for things to begin to bloom vibrantly, enlivening your internal landscape.
Realizing we get to decide what external messages we do and do not internalize is one of the most radical mindset shifts to lilluminate the path of joy.
