Seeing the Best in Others
Making the world a brighter place
True unconditional love lies within how we feel about another’s imperfect aspects; the favorable ones, however, are oftentimes too easy to love.
Though, this sort of love doesn’t come on its own, nor naturally at all times — we must exercise it.
This is where we can find ourselves practicing seeing the best in others, which I thought was fairly self-explanatory: you seek out the favorable you see in others, amplifying it to quiet their imperfection.
I soon started to create the opposing; since constantly narrowing my focus on one’s favorable qualities, I’d subconsciously be reminded of their unfavorable qualities, thus seeing that the imperfect would be more amplified when shown.
Seeing the best in others this way was draining.
I then remembered that our external world is a constructed projection of the quality of our inner world, so I took seeing the best in others to seeing the best in myself, hoping it’d have an easeful domino effect.
And yet still, my theory had its holes, as they all do — I’d attempted in amplifying the best in myself while attempting to quiet my imperfection, and when I did act, think, or even feel “imperfect,” I’d beat myself up.
I can’t believe you said that out loud, you’re an awful person and the other person thinks so also.
How dare you think that; being judgmental makes you ugly.
Stop being so angry, anger is bad!
With this route, I began to see the world through an even greater negative lens.
So, back to the drawing boards, blueprints, and brainstorming I went!
I began to peer at my actions, thoughts, and emotions a little deeper — questioning why they were present, what their motives were, and what was needed for them to be lessened in prominence when negative.
Instead of beating myself up for having a judgmental thought, I began to remember that these thoughts are natural and are often automatic, and what was of more importance was that I didn’t say them aloud as opposed to having the thought to begin.
Though, if I did say it aloud, whether on accident or not, I had two options: dive deeply to my internal mind to beat myself into a pulp for making a mistake or remain external, being innovative with the situation, whether make a joke to lighten the tension or even simply apologize for my out-of-pocket comment.
(It’s unfortunate to say that when I’m running low on battery is when I tend to say the most inappropriate, uncontrolled things. I’m happy to report, though, that I’ve understood it greater to know when it’s time to keep my mouth shut and waltz myself to bed or just away from social interaction until I’m recharged again.)
As for emotions, I also had to remember that they are all natural and what made the most difference was what I did with them when present— attempting to run from a negative emotion/shut it off completely merely amplified it, but when I questioned it by seeking the cause, what need of mine wasn’t being met, and what I could do to meet this need with what I had in the moment, the storming clouds cleared my mind.
Instead of seeing my unfavorable qualities as just that, I became curious of them, creating a harmonious bond with myself and my imperfections.
It’s fairly more difficult to be this way with others, as we may not always know their motivations or needs in one of their moments of imperfection.
Though, once we understand that negative, imperfect, and unfavorable qualities of our own are oftentimes coming from a light place, it becomes far easier to believe the same with others’ as well.
With seeing the best in others, it’s often more difficult to do so because we must first accept their inadequate qualities.
I’m uncertain why accepting others in this way is so challenging, but my guess is that there’s not really a formula or steps to take in acceptance, you just do it.
I also feel that taking other’s words/actions personal plays a part in finding acceptance and tolerance for others in a serene manner complicated.
But the truth is, we all have good and bad in us — with every favorable quality one obtains, there is an unfavorable one behind it — and it’s fairly biased to excuse our own imperfections while simultaneously expecting the world surrounding to be flawless.
I understand that perhaps seeing the best in someone doesn’t always mean you love them or even have any sort of compassion for them, it may simply be someone in your life who you struggle to be around — whether at work, school, or even one day you run into someone difficult at the grocery store.
To truly grasp the concept of seeing the best in others, we must remember to value our peace of mind first.
How we perceive the world matters and arguably creates the foundation to the quality of our lives, and to obtain a better world for ourselves, we must create a better inner world to begin, starting with seeing the best in ourselves.
