If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.
Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.
Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.
I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.
2007-08-01 13:08:53 · 10 answers · asked by cashelmara 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. —Henry David Thoreau
.
2007-08-01 15:24:01 · update #1
This sounds like what it means to be a free-thinker. I like it.
atheist
2007-08-01 13:13:46 · answer #1 · answered by AuroraDawn 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I think it is an honest post. We all want people to understand us for who we are rather than change us into something they think we should be. But that is human nature to do so because this is man's way to make a new friend or a new acquaintance a familiar one. Not to change them but as the means for those new people to accept him also.
The bottom line is that's a two way street and not a one way street.
2007-08-01 20:18:12 · answer #2 · answered by Uncle Remus 54 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
the tools you develop, in life, are influenced by your environment; parents, relatives, friends and the current circumstances in which one finds their self. many intangibles are attained through these relationships.......or not.
we don't all live in an ideal world. we are not blessed with identical skills and/or talents. many choose to adhere to societies boundaries akin to so many lemmings. then there are those who realize that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy. thus your different drummers.
2007-08-02 15:59:46 · answer #3 · answered by ? 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This guy wants people to treat one another in the same way they want to be treated. It's a very good idea. But then, it always was.
He needs to be careful with such revolutionary ideas.
The last Guy Who suggested that people treat each other with love and respect wound up getting Himself nailed to a cross for it.
2007-08-01 20:38:37 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
It would certainly be nice if everyone embraced this way of thinking.
2007-08-01 20:16:59 · answer #5 · answered by dru 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Say What? I wish I could Help You Dear. I for One Am Not interested In changing You. O.k? (smile)
2007-08-01 20:19:59 · answer #6 · answered by minnetta c 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
That sound,s as fair as I,ve seen,
2007-08-09 17:39:44 · answer #7 · answered by elaine 30705 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nice !
I think you should re-post this again.
2007-08-01 22:53:04 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
What if what i want is harmful to you? others?myself?
2007-08-02 22:04:32 · answer #9 · answered by James O 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
I like it. :-)
2007-08-01 20:13:59 · answer #10 · answered by prairiecrow 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋