Expectations
If you cannot be decent to those immediately around you whenever you decide they have aggravated you in some manner or whenever you are simply in a bad mood, then how can you expect people who are dealing with much larger and more difficult issues and who are confronted by others with whom they may have a longstanding history of much greater and more serious friction to stop making war?
If you do not care for the drama and histrionics of those who easily react to minor things with a bad attitude and bad behavior, how can you expect the situation to be improved by responding to them in kind?
If you are unable to be reasonable with yourself when you are disappointed by your own motives, words, and deeds, how can you consider yourself to be any better than when you approach others in this way? If it took no effort for you to live up to your ideals, you would have no business demanding that others make the effort. What right have you to expect them to do a thing not required of you? But if you are honest with yourself, you must admit that doing right is not always easy. And, in order for it to not always be easy, you must be imperfect, which means you will sometimes fail. Do you view this with patience, understanding and compassion?
If you do not intend hypocrisy, think of what you hope for. Act as you would hope for others to act. Take the gentle and loving attitude that you would wish for others to adopt and exhibit. Where there is tension, ease it. Where there is potential explosiveness, diffuse it. When things get out of control, rein them in calmly and with respect. Where mistakes have been made, address them appropriately and move on. Do this whether you are the person initially aggravated or the one dealing with the aggravated person. Leave judgmentalism behind, for it serves no one. If you cannot resolve a situation because others involved refuse to cooperate, realize that this is to do with them, not you, and let go. You cannot control them, but you need not let their insistence on having a problem be personal to you, as though their issues were your own.
Do you see how, once again, it matters not whether earthly life and the material universe are reality or illusion? There are ways in which such a thing matters, but not when it comes to how we conduct ourselves and why we choose a certain way over another. Even if we only spring from the imagination of a source consciousness, what becomes of that consciousness if, in its imaginings, it cannot have love, kindness, and harmony? In the name of compassion, what do you expect?
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