Certainty

Beware: the below is another one of those philosophical, naïve, and probably borderline bologna postings of mine.  Don’t read it if you are a cynic who knows everything.  It’ll just prove to you that I’m an idiot.

Moving on…

Today, while reading facebook posts from old friends, I noticed this status:

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. ~Andre Gide

This pretty much sums up a lot of the changes in my philosophy over the last half decade.  When I went to college, I thought people had answers to the big questions, and I just lacked the faith or the intellect to understand and accept them.

Now – I’m a parent and a teacher.  Those two authority figures were some that I really thought had a lot of the answers when I was a kid.  Now, I realize that most of us are going by our best guess and trying to figure out the answers.

That’s good enough to me.

I have a hard time believing anyone that says that they have it all figured out.  I think the people that are “figuring it all out” seem more grounded and happier generally.  That’s just an observation.

I don’t have all the answers.  Infact, I continue to realize I have very few answers, if any.

I don’t know is becoming a more and more acceptable answer.

"I’m trying to find out” is becoming the best.

This has particularly affected my take on “forgiveness”.  How do I even know if there is anything to forgive?  We know so little of why people do what they do.  I believe people are mostly good, so I doubt that many of the “wrongs” done to me have been intentional.  I know that so little of the harm I have caused others was ever intentional.  So I can never “know for certain” that someone tried to do something out of malice unless they confess it to me directly.

So next time someone cuts me off, or hurts my feelings, I’m going to try to hold to this.  Odds are, they weren’t trying to do something mean.  May as well forgive quickly and move the hell on.