Focus on Yourself and Always Be Kind

Tensions are high in America. They have been before and will be again. I have perused the news and other outlets to find people yelling at each other and becoming violent. My guess is neither side changed their views. Research supports my assumption in a recent study that found the brain area that evaluates and absorbs someone else’s ideas fails to encode the quality of the other person’s opinion, which gives less reason for a person to change their mind. People also discount other peoples’ opinions that do not align with their own past choices and judgments.

Confirmation bias is so strong, that people are quitting friendships and avoiding family, instead of trying to see things from another persons’ point of view. These failing relationships can cause significant stress. The thing you need to find out is if your views are worth forcing onto someone else and which is more important, your views or your relationships? Are these topics that can be avoided or are they urgent? Two important questions to ask yourself: 1) what does the situation trigger in you? 2) What pain do I experience when confronted with the other person’s opposing view?

By answering these two questions you are trying to determine what you are experiencing that makes the other person’s behavior so hard to deal with. Try answering these two questions and I believe you will be surprised at what you find and remember we cannot control what other’s believe or how they behave. Focus on yourself and always be kind.

To change the world, you must first begin with yourself. –Alonzo King