Motherly Advice...How to answer the question 'Should I or Shouldn't I?'...

How to answer to the question 'Should I or shouldn't I?'

I read interestedly, the dilemma of someone I know vaguely, aired on social media this week. This person had spent some years living abroad, and had adopted some of the habits of the general population in her adopted third world country, bringing them home and attaching a normality to them that is not upheld where she now lives. She asked whether we shared her view of normality of this particular habit, as she had experienced some criticism of late and wanted a barometer to assess whether she was unreasonable, or the other person was.

In this particular instance, the resounding response was that if a thing is not viewed as 'normal' where you now live, then perhaps it's time to review that habit. What is undoubtedly normal in one part of the world, can be a real social no-no, elsewhere.

This made me think of all the times in our life, when we ask ourselves 'should I or shouldn't I', and I felt it was a subject worth raising here.

Generally speaking, we were raised to make our own mistakes and learn from them, and learn we did. Often the hard way, but never with risk to life or limb or harm to ourselves or others.

 

We were also raised to respect our bodies and view them as a home for our spirit, and to treat our one and only earthly vessel for that spirit well, for it is the only one we get. This one idea saved my siblings and I from many dangers that were the scourge of our generation and subsequent ones, in the form of drugs, cigarettes, inappropriate food and lifestyles that are not conversant with a 'home harbouring a spirit life'.

Mum taught us too, to value family above all. That means family comes first, no matter what. Sometimes that means making difficult decisions, but as the old saying goes, blood is thicker than water, and we support family above and beyond all else.

So if you're asking yourself 'should I or shouldn't I', perhaps ask yourself these 9 questions...

1. If I do this, do I harm myself or anyone else in the process?

2. In saying yes or no to a request being made of me, do I sacrifice something of myself that I am not willing to surrender?

3. If I do this, do I harm my body, mind, heart or spirit?

4. If I do this, do I damage my relationship with those who I consider most important in my life, remembering that even the friendships that we consider equally important alongside family relationships come and go over a lifetime....family is forever. If your family relationships are not what you might call 'forever', then insert those people who represent 'family' to you.

5. In doing this thing, or saying yes to this request, am I contradicting a fundamental personal belief?

6. Will I regret this?

7. Will I be ashamed of this at some point in the future?

8. Is this something I would tell to my grandmother, or my grandchildren? And if not, why not?

9. What is my gut feeling on this matter? Me? I could have saved myself much grief over the years, if I had simply trusted my gut feeling. So many times, I've pressed ahead with a course of action, not feeling quite right about the other people involved for some reason or other, and lived to regret it. Trust your instincts. We humans have enormous capacity for detecting something 'not quite right', and we've come to ignore it, believing that our superior intellect means we can ignore 'gut'.

Look after mind, body, spirit, and heart. The rest will follow.

...Mimi...