Changing social discourse around us is in the hands of each and every one of us.
When we are dealing with social discourse, we are immediately dealing with difficult challenges as well: with the need to bridge gaps and contradictions, with the need to create understanding in situations in which each person sees things differently, and with a long list of additional obstacles awaiting us even before we have opened our mouths to speak.
The main obstacle in every fight and in every argument that has gone ‘off the rails’ is the difficulty each side has in taking personal responsibility for his or her part in the situation. Because each person’s blindness to his or her own part forces them to blame the other, and nothing disrupts the social discourse more than that.
It is Always Your Choice
Personal responsibility is a condition for changing the social discourse, because only when we recognize our actions that hurt the discourse between us, only then can we choose positive behaviors that will contribute to a positive discourse. Therefore, it is all a matter of choice: do you behave according to automatic habits without choosing your actions or do you know how to step out of the automat, and to always choose the behavior that will be most beneficial for you.
The connection between personal responsibility and personal choice clear. When you do not take on personal responsibility you only see the negative actions of others, and then you are constantly frustrated when they don’t behave the way you want them to. And in the meantime, who remains to observe your behavior?
So this is it: you can be bitter about people who don’t behave the way you want them to, and you can also sizzle and become angry because of the injustice caused by others, because of others’ irresponsibility and because of others’ lack of caring. In short, you can spend the rest of your life being bitter about things you cannot change.
But you are wasting your spiritual strength on impossible battles, and in the meantime you are left without the strength to change what you can and must change: your part in the discourse with the environment. You can’t choose how reality will advance, but you can choose how you will deal with reality. And you cannot choose how other people will behave, but you can choose how you will.
Commit to Choosing Right
So what about you, do you want to choose your discourse with every person and in every framework? First of all, acknowledge the fact that it is not because of someone else, but because of your choices. You choose how to deal with things, you choose how to react to things, you choose where to take the situation.
Now you can start changing your choices: start choosing if you say difficult words or words that invite discussion, if you hurt the other or talk about things, if you deride things which are important to the other or listen to them, if you invalidate their opinion or if you are drawn to someone else’s every provocation or if you control your feelings.
This is taking personal responsibility of your own choices. And in this state you will no doubt always influence those around you to get in touch with the good and the beautiful within themselves.