Stop talking.

Did you ever notice that people get in the way of you being a loving, compassionate, caring, forgiving, gracious kind of person? You can have all the great intentions in the world, but then people come along and mess it all up. Let me tell you, if I didn't have to deal with actual people I would be awesome! It is so easy to think about doing the right thing and practice doing the right thing and even talk about doing the right thing. Try doing the right thing - sometimes seems impossible. People talk back and interrupt you and cry and yell and go silent and walk away and then what do you do with your good intentions? Mine tend to go out the window at that point and I get frustrated, mad, impatient and often say things I later regret. We are often very focussed on being right and being heard, rather than being focussed on listening and understanding. As a society I think we have conflict resolution all backwards. If we all stopped trying to be heard and understood and started listening and understanding, we might just get somewhere.

Thank you for that pep talk, Diane. You're welcome, Diane.

Yes, sometimes I need to talk to myself out loud.