Open thy heart

I have been high maintenance for thirthy- three years. I always expected people to match my standards - be optimistic, have good manners, be honest, have dignity, be punctual, be literate and well-educated, know English (wink, wink), know the difference between green tea and black tea (fermentation degree), be a respectful driver (not jumping in front of me unannounced) - the list is virtually endless- and what I ended up with was OCD and rolled eyes every time someone didn't match my high expectations. And then something cracked. Was it during psycholoigical therapy? Was it at astrological lessons? Not sure. But what came out of that crack was totally new to me- authentic empathy and sincere understanding that people all come from their childhood, which does not have to be that good, in fact. People are not illiterate because they chose to. Education was merely not top priority in the families. People do not lie because they want to? It takes a lot of courage and self-wealth to tell the truth at hard times and always. And the vast majority just lacks these qualities or is on the way of developing them. People are not bad drivers out of disrespect. Simply, their anxiety makes them so irritated that road rage is their best friend. For many, driving is the only opportunity to express aggresion. People do not come late to lessons and meetings because they intend to make you wait impatiently. They just can't feel the time very well, allocate it with poor time management skills. We don't blame people with low intellect for being stupid. They are just under-nourished. The same is true for not very kind people. They are under-loved and under-cared for. It was in Mel Robbin's recent podcast that I was reminded about the power of opening one's heart. And guess what? Opening one's heart quickly makes one's heart more loveable and appreciated and cherished. And incidentally, people started to be punctual, and everyone arround me accidentally seems to have a lot of patience and appreciation. I also admitted to myself and one student that quitting relationships of various types was my escape from the fear of being hurt. Let me hurt first, so that I am not hurt. But then it stroke me that quitting is easy, staying is hard. And in order to stay all I needed to do was ... to open my heaert!