Influence: Enabling the Good, Disabling the Bad

Why do we always take so much more notice of those overt things that occur in our faces?

This is an important question with an easy answer, and that, provoking more thought.

We always tend to take most notice of those things said or done more directly to us and, indeed, the opposite truth is just as compelling: what we don’t know can’t really hurt us.

Pertaining to my relationships, I used to often say this to myself: “What I don’t know won’t hurt me.”

It’s not a perfect saying, of course, but there is a lot of truth to it; for if we really knew what people flippantly said about us behind our backs, i.e. most often without intention to hurt us, we’d be incredibly hurt—in this context we’re best not knowing and blissful unawareness is not a bad thing. It protects us from the vexatiousness of common humanity.

We Believe a ‘Squeaky Wheel’ or Two

What we know we can’t possibly refute; though we try we can’t erase our memories, especially those marked by negative things. What others reflect back to us often becomes our truth, and not what we actually saw. The bad ‘truth’ clings because we were hurt, and therefore most influenced, by it. It goes on condemning us as our thoughts loop over and through our minds again and again and again.

The squeaky wheel or two have more influence over us than the ten or twelve others who saw the same thing and were otherwise ambivalent, choosing not to say or do anything about it.

Weighing Our Realities Beyond Others’ Influence

We’re always best to weigh this knowledge; that what we see and hear from others is not always the best truth—we’re still far better off to conform ourselves to the actual truth.

Finding ourselves believing others—and especially others we don’t trust or respect—and them having a great deal of influence over us, i.e. them taking command of our thoughts and weighing in on our minds, is a bondage we don’t need.

Having faith suggests we can very easily reconsider, and even reject, what is most obvious—that which is ‘in our face’. We would be best believing, instead, the logical mind, which is the counsel of God, certainly through trusted others.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.