After another wonderful 6 hour lunch with some of my forever friends (I will stalk you if you try leave me) and many in-depth conversations about life in general…

Side note: I always wonder what those people who sit near us think when they most likely hear snippets of our conversations ranging from our lives, dramas and lack thereof (thankfully) and the most important one of what we would do when we win the lottery…

Back to the main note:
A wonderful lunch led to a debate on whether or not we should always be vocal of our opinions in other people’s decisions. It is something I think about extensively and whether or not I should keep my opinions to myself because…quite honestly, it’s not something that affects me directly, or there may be many outcomes regardless, or even more importantly, my opinion hasn’t been asked for.

I have learnt the extremely hard way that most people do not want your advice; nor do they want you to tell them what to do or point out things they already know but choose to ignore.
What people (me included) want, is to be heard, maybe some guidance and for enough support and trust, that when mistakes are made, you will be there to support them. Not to say, “I told you so.”
Ideally people (myself included) want the freedom to make their own decisions.

I’ve also learnt that the hardest thing to do is to let people be themselves. When we’re not emotionally vested in a situation we can see the sky and rainbow and clouds and thunderstorms all clearly. We are all qualified meteorologists. We can see all the consequences depending on what choice is made clearly. We believe we can objectively provide our very factual based opinions.

But.

People are not rational creatures. No matter how unemotional some people may be, there will always be areas that they’re emotionally vested in.

So what do we do?

Do we raise our loud voices and bully the person? Do we manipulate the situation to get our way (because not only are we all qualified meteorologists but we’re also all psychic and can see into the future and know 100 percent the best outcome)? Do we argue until we get our way in this situation, that in reality has nothing to do with us or our lives…just so we can feel good about ourselves?

Or.

Outrageous idea:

Do we allow the person the freedom to make their own decisions? Do we give them the support so that regardless of whether the decision is right or wrong (according to us) they can trust that either way they know we’ll be there?

I thought I was good at this but I am learning that I could be better. Accepting that my opinion is not as important as I might like to believe, I would still be supportive. Regardless the outcome.

Imagine a friendship or relationship (of any kind) where the person trusts you enough to say: “Even if I fail, I know you’ve got my back. Thank you.”

Now imagine how good it would be if we had someone we could say that to.

Love. Light. Kindness.

MyButterflyDream