Blind Faith

I’ve felt this a few times in my life – the typical “Santa Claus is not real… fuck” feeling. Obviously, when I realized Santa Claus isn’t real. Also, when I found myself less and less intrigued by playing Barbies and couldn’t understand where or why my imagination left me. This isn’t a cool girl living a storybook life in a beautiful house? This is a plastic doll lying on a makeshift pillow made with jagged seams from a clumsy 11 year old’s fingers and stuffed with toilet paper! In college, it was the realization that guys aren’t dreaming of whimsical, sunset stories of falling in love as much as they are falling into your bed and post-college it was that you don’t get a great, thrilling job simply because you are amazing and can’t they see your potential just by looking at you?!

Life has a way of slowly (albeit, not gently) having you face reality and lose a little piece of your blind faith. These days I’ve learned to not trust blindly. That sounds very guarded and terrible, I know! It’s not so much that the world is a horrible place and everyone is out to get you – I haven’t gotten that sour yet. Rather, I am at my dentist with some contraption poking out of my mouth, a drill sanding down my tooth and I’m all too aware that he could fuck up my teeth with a mere slip of the hand or mind. Start thinking about that argument you had with your daughter as she left for school that morning or that bill that has been sitting on the counter? My teeth are ruined!

It’s not that I don’t think my dentist is a perfectly amazing dentist. Thanks to his expertise I am rockin’ a few fillings these days and my teeth are happy campers. I’ve just learned that other adults have a few more years under their belt, but they are just like me. Human, doubting, learning, imperfect, growing, fucking-up, doing alright. We are all capable of amazing things and being especially good at one thing but we are all still humans and have imperfections all over the place.

Now I am at the good part (finally) – if we stop having such blind faith in other peoples abilities, why do we still hold such a high value for their opinion? Aka, why do we give any fucks at all? Why do I feel so much sway by others perspective and beliefs when there is no reason to believe that this is ‘word’ or a truth. There is experience – I will probably value my mom’s opinion on life’s hardships a bit more than I value my 25 year old friend but what do I know? They’ve both lived very differently, one longer than the other but completely in unrelated circumstances. How can I decide which one is more valuable to me?

All this said, I still think its important to hear it all. Don’t be a bigot. Listen to every aspect and outlook. They all arrived at this belief somehow. Learn their story and know that you might not agree but respect that their experiences (or even lack thereof) brought them where they are that day.

Just after you hear it, stick to your truths. No one has lived, thought or felt the things you have in every single circumstance. Having a shared perspective is a special connection that brings peace of mind but you have to realize that while you may agree in that very finite situation, matching perfectly in that instant, a brief parallel – not a single soul in this world has experienced everything as you have. Why worry if someone else disagrees with you? You are human. They are human. While I think we are all programmed to believe someone has something over us, the grass is greener, they are smarter, wiser, older, something-er and we should value their perspective over our own – don’t just give them the benefit of the doubt. Learn, adjust if you see fit and always stick to your truths.