Email: Basic human principles [SD]

I didn't say "all other women do this" to imply that you did too. I said "all other women." I'm just saying it's interesting that all other women do this. If I were a woman, I wouldn't do that either. However, it would be just as interesting that such had been "my" experience with every other woman. Anyway, "I'm just saying" (whatever that means).

I realize that people are basically creatures of habit. [However I am often] anything but a creature of habit; I rejoice in doing everything differently, every time, in endless variety. I trust my intellectual and creative judgment. Yes, there are ways I have allowed myself to be cowed by the status quo or "we don't do that here" (though sometimes I reverse that after I find it's a dead end). Maybe it's a futile exercise for consultants and motivational speakers to ever tell people to "think out of the box" -- but I prefer to think the other way. People are capable of a world of possibilities, if they choose to pursue their path.

[You ask,] Who is to say when something is not right? I'm not placing myself in God's sandals; I'm placing myself in the other's shoes. When something fails or falls short repeatedly in your life or anyone else's, then you are your own jury; you know what is not working for you. I'm just standing there seeing the same thing is all.

People hurt others because they have been hurt, and have failed to choose to "think outside of the box" and grow and treat others positively. This is not "everyone"; it is small-minded and small-hearted people, who I believe are in the minority. As I think you know, there are two wrong ways to interact with others: to make oneself superior or to make oneself inferior. The trick I just to learn how to make oneself strong without having to make someone else weak. These are basic humanitarian principles practiced the world over; all a person has to do is want to learn and grow in such a path.

You're right that trusting your own choices is often based on some level of proven confidence in the past. However, my point is that it can also be based on some level of trusting faith in the future (specifically, in God and who he made you or me to be). That is what gets me by every day, from then till now; it always has and it always will.