Let Things Sit

There are times when you can be upset by something. It could be somebody did something that went against what they said they were going to do. You could have been expecting one thing and had something else happen. Or it could be that you said something and realized it was the wrong thing and now are beating yourself up about it.

No matter what the situation, we are always going to run into conflicts at some point in our lives. For me that happens way too often and I usually make this one mistake: I act too soon after the situation. All too often I have seen that I haven’t let things sit long enough in those kinds of situations. I’ve instead gone off half cocked and ended up making a mess of things that could have just resolved themselves if I had given the situation some time and thought. That can really be frustrating because every situation is different and there is an optimal time for waiting before acting. Unfortunately it changes depending on the situation. If it was easy, then somebody would say, “Just wait a couple hours and every upsetting thing will clear itself up.”

Not so. In some cases it can day hours, but in my experience it takes days. For some of the more difficult situations it can even take years or decades. Not a great prospect, but it sometimes takes that long for feelings to sort themselves out and for people to see how things have either changed over the years or the years gives them a new perspective as they look at the situation with more seasoned eyes.

There are times when some things will never be totally reconciled. In those cases it’s best to just look at life and recognize that not everything can be fixed, but as long as you are trying, that there is always hope.

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The image, titled “Resting..”, was taken by “Manu Praba”. You can find it on flickr.