Mind Your Own Business

This expression has become synonymous with accusing someone of nosing in to someone else’s affairs, and warning them to get out of it.

Instead though how about seeing this as really good advice for life. 

We are all so busy caught up in what is going on outside of us because we see those that are in our lives as extensions of ourselves to varying degrees, from immediate family to friends and acquaintances. 

In our everyday language we label people as ‘my’ something or other, husband, wife, brother, sister and so on.  By laying claim to them over and over in our daily conversations their behaviours and their effects upon us, become entwined in that ownership too.   We feel positive emotions around those that display desired social behaviour and achievements, and on the flipside we feel negative emotions to those that don’t.

As a mum I have many a time experienced pride when someone compliments me on my children’s good behaviour and similarly have cringed when they’re little horns are out.  The thing is though, that whatever the behaviour it’s about me.   In an ideal, enlightened world I would not be affected by other peoples opinions of my kids it would be enough that they are able to express all aspects of themselves, however that manifests itself.  Still working on that one, some days harder than others.

The very act of labelling something immediately makes it measurable.  We all have ideas of how partners should behave, so labelling someone brings with it a set of pre-conceived behavioural ideals.  When they measure above and beyond we judge that things are good, even great.  When they don’t display the pre-conceived ideals we then complain that they are behaving badly.  Thing is though that all the time we are judging any type of behaviour we are not paying attention to ourselves and what we are doing in our own lives, we loose sight of that which is truly important… us.

I wrote in a previous blog that we are not multi-tasking and we’re not, jugglers yes, multi-taskers…NO.

If we are busy judging and thinking about the behaviours and attitudes of others we are not centred.  We are not in our own business we are in theirs.  All our woes and upsets are about what others are doing or not doing that we don’t like, find offensive, feel un-loved.  Thing is regardless of whether you’re right about those things, that’s them and who they are and that is ultimately their business, not yours.

Your focus is you and should be only you.  Now this is where people start jumping up and down and the word selfish gets bandied about.  This is anything but, when you are focused on your own set of behaviours and inner world and understand that they are the only thing that you have any real control over, you are liberated from the effects of the behaviours of others. 

We are individual expressions of the Universe experiencing itself as life.  In this case you.  That is the same story for those that you know, but they are the Universe experiencing itself as them.  Each one of us is unique, a one off never to be repeated, here to experience life in this borrowed and ultimately short time that we are here.  Wasting it by getting hung up on judging and/or controlling another’s behaviours is just a waste of that precious time.

From the cradle we are taught that we are responsible for how other people feel, as children our whole lives are set up to keep our parents happy and appeased otherwise there are consequences.  It’s handed down through the generations, through parents, school, church, state and on the list goes. 

To believe that you have any real control over another persons behaviour or emotions is illusory, because it’s all conditional, which means it can be broken at any time should the other party find it becomes too much or suits them to do different, which is always their divine right as it is yours.

If you were a business owner how long do you think it would survive if you devoted the majority of the working day involving yourself in what the other businesses were doing?  If you’re over there, you’re not here, if you’re not here, your not taking care of the most important business of all…your own.  You can only be focused on one life at a time and in order to make it any kind of success it needs to be your own.

It makes you a better person.  If you are managing your own life and business then you will find that you are happier, more peaceful, because even if it’s not ideal you know you are steering it and going somewhere with it.  That immediately makes you a better person to be around.  Someone easier to be with, have fun with and love.   Others will thank you for not being in their business, particularly if you were not invited in to it in the first place.

If you don’t like someone’s behaviour then move on, temporarily or permanently, you do not have to stay with anyone who exhibits unpleasant, undesirable traits, so you remove yourself from it mentally, physically, emotionally whichever is required at the time, you do what you need to do for you in the management of You Inc.  How they choose to deal with that is then their own business, and they will do what they feel that they need to do in relation to their own lives and what is best for them.

We are multi-faceted bundle of experiences, emotions, behaviours and desires and each one of us is different, we could be here for any eternity and never really ever figure out another person and what really makes them tick, we rarely ever really get to meet ourselves on that level and it certainly won’t happen if we’re busily involved running the lives of others.

What other people do is none of my business, what other people think of me is none of my business.