Intent

Intent

Over the past few months, things in my life have been better thanever. New home, new friends, and wonderful career. Yet I foundmyself uncharacteristically asking, “Self, why am I feeling sofrustrated? Why am I getting upset at the smallest ofsituations?”

I did a little digging (soul searching, if you will) and realizedthat as wonderful as things were going at the moment, like mostof us, I had some unfinished business out there.

There were a handful of people and negative relationships thatwere still on my mind and wanted to do something about it.

What I came up with was the realization that out of all thepeople or things I was angry with, none of them (did I believe)truly meant to cause me harm. In other words, they had no intentfor malice; it was only the interpretation of the event orsituation that caused me anger and pain.

Think about this for a second. How many times have you gotteninto arguments over the silliest of things, only to later realizehow foolish you were being and to acknowledge that you’d simplygotten caught up in the moment?

After pondering this question for a bit, I decided to dosomething I should have done long ago. I thought about the fewrelationships in my life that were less than perfect or had endedon a sour note. I then committed myself to research what hadcaused the upheaval and to do my best to rectify therelationships that lacked a harmful intent.

I asked myself whether my ex-wife had really intended to slanderme with the things she said, or whether she’d been speakingthrough her frustration and uncertainty of losing a relationshipthat she had shared for over half her lifetime. Had my fatherintended to discard our relationship, or was he simply avoidingme to save himself from having to deal with his own ex-wife whomay have said some terrible things to him as well?

Get the picture?

Now, as personal as this is, I share it with you this monthbecause what happened next was truly amazing. By taking actiontoward repairing the past and eliminating the negative feelings Iwas carrying, I rekindled some of the best relationships I’d everknown.

Look, I’m not asking you to play God and pretend to know whatpeople think. However, you can use common sense and make aneducated guess. For example, if someone borrows your car andcrashes it, ask yourself whether they meant to do it. More thanlikely, they didn’t, so why end a relationship over it? However,if someone takes a bat to your car and smashes it to pieces,you’re probably safe in assuming they had a negative intent.

Now let me ask you, do you have any relationships that may havebeen severed from an accident or misunderstanding? In retrospect,do you think the person truly intended to destroy, upset, orprovoke you? Was a bat involved, or just angry words andmisguided thoughts? If you can’t find evidence of a harmfulintent, pick up the phone, say hello, and let go of yourresentment.

Let it go, let it go- let it go.

Keep Smilin',