Dig a little deeper

I don't always do what I know I should do.

And I think this is often the case for many people, but we tend to overlook it.

The truth is, there are quite a few people in this world who are annoying. In fact, some of them straight up drive me crazy at times. The problem comes when I let the minor flaws in people be the only thing I see.

For instance, there is a woman in one of my grad school classes who talks way too much—often about things that are not relevant to the class or our topic of conversation in any manner—and it seems that she really is just doing this for attention and to make others have sympathy for her. It really aggravates me, especially when it forces us to waste time in class. I like to get out of there as early as possible, and her useless anecdotes don't help this by any means.

Enter guilty conscience.

It's later after class that I start to think to myself that perhaps she has no one else to listen to her stories. She seems like she leads a rather lonely life, and I truthfully don't know if she has a lot of friends outside of our grad class. And, honestly, though she can be a bit opinionated and sometimes even pompous, she has some great qualities to her. For example, she always asks how other people are doing, and she is quite articulate.

I've come to the conclusion that it's best to find the good characteristics in people rather than dwell on the minor things that send us to bonkersville. This is going to be my new goal: anytime I find myself in a situation where someone is annoying me, I am going to focus on all of the good qualities about that person. I believe that all people have some sort of good in them, and we should focus on that instead of their flaws.

This woman has a heart of solid love.

My mom is probably the best person I know who does this. I know I've said this before, but I have never heard her say a mean thing about anybody. Ever. In fact, she always told us: "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all." I find myself trying to be like her in this aspect more and more every day, though it's a lot more difficult than she makes it seem. She just has one of those genuinely kind hearts that blocks what the eyes see. I think we all need to look with loving hearts more often.

God made us all with purpose and love, and we are all special to Him. I can't sit here and be the judge of people, and I am sure that I do things that make people twitch. Because none of us is perfect, there are bad things in all of us. But, thankfully, there is also an inherent good in all of us, and I like the challenge of finding that in everyone. Even the meanest people have some glimmer of kindness somewhere in their beings.

I'm going to choose (and hopefully be successful) to embrace the challenge and embrace goodness and love.

I think the key word here is challenge.