I’m baaaaaccckkk! I haven’t had my laptop in over 2 months. And I got so used to not having a laptop, that now having one feels like a total luxury. I have a bunch of posts and post ideas in my drafts just waiting to be written and published. & photos of beautiful moments in life to share with you. I feel like over the last few months I just lost my (blog) voice. But I really miss it and just want to get it back again.
I feel grateful that there are some of you out there who follow this blog and don’t mind me sharing these things with you. I do hope you get some value from being here too.
So, I was thinking about the qualities that make a person reasonable, that gives them the force of reason. It is that force allows people to take responsibility for their life, and gives them the power to influence themselves and those around them in a positive way. Hmm, I think this is something I really need to develop in myself. Some times I don’t feel very reasonable at all -_-.
1. honesty.
I think the first pre-requisite for building reason within ourselves is to practice honesty. Honest living. Only through complete honesty can we even attempt to see reality for it really is. Those who lie often, even about small things, over time tend to start believing in their own lies. When this happens they start to live in delusion, in their own fantasy world. It is very difficult to reason with people who are living this way, because they have their own idea of the reality, and it usually does not correspond with the truth.
By trying to live an honest life and being honest at all times, you will be given the gift of clarity – to see all things, and all people for exactly as they are. When you are honest with the world, the world gives you an honest picture back. From this place you will be able to make better decisions in life. I think that when people sometimes say “I don’t know why I keep making terrible decisions in life” it often indicates that this person can afford to live even more honestly. Because they are not being entirely honest with themselves or with the people around them (for fear of hurting feelings, unearthing something raw, or any other reason) they are not given an honest picture back of their life. It becomes really hard to make good and smart decisions. This is one of the attributes of a reasonable person – they have a strong ability to make good decisions in life and this comes due to their will to be honest.
2. Responsibility
Another quality that builds reason is the ability to continue doing your responsibilities regardless of how you “feel”. An unreasonable person often acts out of states of mood and emotion, whereas a reasonable person acts out of a sense of duty. Our moods and emotions change constantly and consistently and if we only do things when we feel like doing them, we would hardly get anything done and we would probably end up being a pretty unreliable person. I also am a strong believer that 90% of inspiration comes after action is taken, and only 10% comes before we act. But yet we always keep chasing that 10% believing that we need to be divinely inspired before we can do anything. There are certain actions we have to take every day to feed our own souls, to help the ones around us live their life, and to help our society. To build reason we should try to do these things even at times when we don’t feel like it. After we become stronger and build greater reason within ourselves, on our low days, all the energy that we have been feeding will come back to us and support us too.
3. Lack of judgement
I believe that reasonable people will always take opportunities to listen to people and hear the full story. I think we have to understand that no one does things for the intention of being bad and hurting people and causing chaos. Most peoples actions fit into their story and their understanding of life. Intentions are rarely just black and white, good and evil. When someone does something that you cannot understand, it often helps to keep asking questions until you can get enough distance to see their big picture. From here you will be able to see what factors were present to lead things to be the way they are now. Over time slowly we will relinquish our desire to judge people and instead accept them as they are. We will also become very good listeners and “understanders”.
I think Lack of judgment is a very important trait of reasonable people.
4. Inner Discipline
I think we also have to have an inner discipline that we follow, a set of internal rules and values that we live by. When we stop breaking our own internal rules and promises to ourselves we begin to build trust with ourselves. And I believe that when we have self-trust we become trustworthy to others also.
Having our own inner discipline anchors us. It will always remind us what we must focus on right now, and that can be very helpful, especially in stormy weather, in the dark days, when our emotions pull us in all kinds of directions. It reminds us that even if things are getting all weird in life, there is something you can do right now that you know is for goodness and that will develop us.
5. Present moment awareness
Reasonable people have the ability to keep their awareness in the present moment, because they know that this is the only place that they have power. They don’t spend too much energy sentimentalising or regretting the past, neither do they spend their time romanticising or fearing the future. They focus only on today, and what needs to be dealt with at this moment, at what they can do today that will make a difference. Because our feelings towards the past or the future cannot help us today.
Because they are able to focus their awareness on the now, they tend to be very present people in all their interactions and dealings. When they work, they work, they are productive. When they relax, they relax fully and are rejuvenated. When they meet their friends, they can be fully present and there for them. Whatever they engage in, they can do well, because they offer all their focus and attention, instead of splitting their thoughts between the thoughts of today and the ones rooted in yesterdays and tomorrows.
They are also able to decide to not creating imaginary problems for themselves. I wrote a blog post on this before, called the Disease of the mind. So you can read more about that there.
6. Humility and The ability to see your own flaws
Finally I think that there is can be no force of true reason in a person if they don’t also possess humility. The first step of cultivating humility is being able to recognize your own flaws, either by noticing them yourself, considering it when it is pointed out to you by someone, and also by being able to decode the struggles you face in your life and accepting the darker parts of you that attracts these problems. Reasonable people are smart enough to know that they are not perfect. And as soon as a person believe that they are perfect and always right, they already begin to lose their reason. Because a person who does not have the ability to see their own bad qualities is unable to practice true compassion, understanding, and of course reason. We lose our ability to reason, understand, debate, consider – when we hold the intrinsic belief that we are unflawed, perfect, right.
That is only the first step of humility. The other aspects of humility involve the ability to respect people around you, the ability to not only listen, but also to follow the advice of wise people, the ability to be a gentle presence in life, and to not feel like the world owes you something, but rather that you must do something for this planet.
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Of course this is not an exhaustive list, just a few qualities that I thought about. What other qualities do you see in reasonable, rational, strong, dependable people?
Till next time…
m
