How We Affect Other People
-
We all want to live our lives in the way that we feel is best for us. We want to do the things that we want to do and not do the things that we don't want to do. But, of course, there are always some constraints like work and other commitments. So, we have to make compromises, and as we make these compromises more and more of our freedom to choose is taken away.
But it's not our freedom that I'm concerned about here. I want to talk about how we can protect the personal freedom of other people—the people around us that we come into contact with. In all of our dealings with people, either close to us or not, there is definitely a line we can cross. A line between what is best for us to do and what is not best for us to do.
In situations where something is being decided, plans are being made, or we are just doing something with someone, we have the power to affect that person's life. So, we should be conscious of how we are acting and how we are affecting them. One way that we take away people's freedom is when we subconsciously think that they think they don't know what to do in a certain situation.
In our own lives, we always think that we know or can work out what to do, so there's no reason why we shouldn't think that other people think this about themselves too. But when we don't, we start trying to think for the other person or think on their behalf, and this inevitably leads to telling them what they should do.
And to us, it seems harmless. They should just do what we say. It is the best way after all. Or they don't have to, it's up to them. They can make their own decisions. But by telling them what we think they should do, we have already limited their freedom to choose because we have altered how they think.
Another way to take away freedom that we need to be careful of is trying to control people. And we should be aware of when we are doing this. By controlling people, I simply mean making people do things that we want them to do but that they would rather not do. And it could be anything, even the very smallest, most harmless thing.
So when do we seek to control people? Well, one of the times is when we are out with them and we are not having fun. In these cases, we will sometimes try to steer the situation into something we want to do. Or another time is when we want someone to do something that we think is important. Of course, things that are important to us are not always important to other people.
And we need to be the most careful when we are with the people closest to us because we often try to control the smaller details of how they live their lives. As I said earlier, these things can seem harmless or like very small things to be concerned about. It's just the way that the world is and the way that people are.
But the fact is that we don't like it when people infringe upon our freedom to be who we are and choose what we want to do. We don't like it when people push their agendas on us and force us into a situation. And of course, we can say no or push back. We can react and refuse just like they can. But the truth is that usually we don't. We don't want to make a big deal out of something small. So, we let it go.
But we don't need to make other people feel like that. We don't need to make them give up their own freedom just because of how we act.
