The standards you set, about what you respect and believe in, help to define the principles you’re trying to forge! Those same principles help you to reinforce those standards and make it clear as to what you expect and more importantly, accept, from yourself and others. As children, we inherit others principles from how we are raised and who is around us. Those are still others principles, based off of how they think. When we decide what to think, based off of how we think, we have forged our own principles and they are far more powerful to us because that is a good look into who we are as an individual. If you want to grow as a person and reinforce the validity of what you think, make sure that you concentrate on how you’re thinking and not just what you’re thinking. If you don’t agree with someone, refuse trying to follow their logic from their perspective or are able to follow their logic but take it as a personal attack on you as an individual; its time to grow. Your views and principles shouldn’t be so fragile or flawed; that you feel like a real conversation, where others ask you to defend or explain your contention is taken as an insult. These are the types of conversations that you should be looking for. If someone is wiling to explain the logic behind their views and/or wants you to lay out yours, you should embrace that with all you can. I don’t know everything and neither does anyone else so why shutdown the idea that either of you has something to learn or teach. If someone does find a flaw in your logic that you can’t rationalize without going against your principles, you should smile and dig into that, not shut down and lash out. If someone owns the principles you have and you are unable to make them your own, then you are not your own person and they own you too. What standards have you set for yourself? What do you respect and believe in? Why?
