When we first arrive as wee little babes on this orbiting, planetary home, we’re the apple of someone’s eye (ideally). We’re the center of the universe for someone.
Then we start to grow and turn into a regular human like everyone else. We’re no longer the sweet and soft bundle of joy.
So even though we may still be the apple of someone’s eye, everyone has pretty much resumed their regular life… more or less, of course.
We, as former bundles of someone’s joy, have embarked on our own journey.
The problem is…
I told my kids about being the center of the universe, but before they got too cocky and demanding, I spelled it out for them…
The problem with being the center of the universe is that everyone else is, too. According to each of us, we’re each the center of the universe.
Sounds crazy selfish, but it’s true. No one but you wakes up in the morning wondering what to do with your life today.
And that’s kind of a good thing—we’re in charge of our own self, and everyone else is in charge of their self. We don’t have to live anyone else’s life for them.
This is a giant load off.
It’s quite enough to manage our own life without having to manage someone else’s, too—or worse, a whole lot of someone elses, which is what we humans actually try to do allllll the time.
It’s one thing to be taking care of kids, or in a special-care situation, or taking care of elderly parents who depend on our guidance, but it’s quite another thing to think we can possibly know what’s best for any other human.
And shoot, even in parenting and special situations, the person we’re taking care of still has the nerve to have their druthers! They still have the nerve to act like the center of the universe!
It’s just a helluva a lot of pressure to decide how the rest of humanity ought to live their lives, never mind all inside-the-soul-and-psyche info about everyone else that we simply don’t have.
Simply put, we’re each on our own journey as we travel along together, side by side on this orbiting island home we share. And we’re each the center of the universe.
Remembering to stay in our own universe
It takes trust, though, to believe that other people can manage their life as well as we can clearly see they ought to.
This is mighty challenging for parents when our children start turning into free-thinking, independent-minded people. And they start this so early! The nerve!
We’re fairly certain we know what’s best for them–and honestly, sometimes we do. We try and try to maintain our authority—it’s for their own good! But damned if those kids don’t keep doing things their own way.
This stuff is difficult for bossy people, whether we’re talking spouses, parents, friends, and family members, or actual bosses and supervisors. And it’s super hard for people with full-blown control issues.
But even with normal control issues, not pathological control issues, eek, we all do this control thing in everyday life.
We really do believe we know what’s best for our children, our friends, our partner, our co-worker, people halfway around the world, and even the poor girl at the bank.
It’s just that we have the hardest time remembering to stay in our own universe.
We have the hardest time remembering that we’re not the center of anyone else’s universe.
It’s so easy to mind other people’s business, to know what’s best for them, to run their life from outside their life. (All of which reminds me of how good a parent I was before I had children of my own.)
But all we’re doing is busying ourself with what other people ought to do instead of minding our own universe.
Running other people’s life, even from our real or metaphorical armchair, is just a smarty pants way of avoiding dealing with our own mess.
The sweet freedom of not being the center of the universe for everyone else, too, whew
So yes, we’re the center of the universe.
And also yes, so is everyone else.
The good news and the bad news, too, is that there’s nothing we can do about it.
We’ve got to put up with people doing things that look utterly unwise, foolish, or even dangerous.
We’ve got to live alongside people making decisions we find questionable, if not reprehensible.
We’ve got no choice (though we keep arguing that we do) but to keep going with our own self, in spite of what looks like a whole lot of idiots around us.
We’re forced to admit that people just can’t be fixed by us. Each and every one of us is only in charge of our own self in our own universe.
Even if we decide otherwise, no two humans are having the same experience anyway—we’re incapable of knowing what’s best for others, even if we see ourself as very wise and experienced indeed.
There’s a lot of freedom in not having a say in anyone’s life but our own.
While the world seems full of people making bad decisions, and while we can obviously get along with some people but not everyone, it seems, we’re ultimately in charge of just one human.
And that’s gracious plenty to manage.
It takes faith to believe that other people should manage their own life, even when evidence seems to indicate otherwise.
It takes trust to live and let live.
We have to release our resistance to be the center of the universe and fully allow others to do the exact same thing.
Well, actually, we don’t have to release a single bit of resistance, or have faith, or have trust. We can try and try some more to run the entire universe instead of just the one thing we actually have control over.
We do have that option.
Hey, hey, you wonder-filled being, let me know in the comment section below what you think. ⬇️
