Good or Bad

No person makes it by themselves. The poets and the singers got it right.

It is incredible, when we think of it, that for all the foibles and failures in our society, we actually function best with a community. As a matter of fact, lack of community only serves to stunt our ability to grow and do better. Although I focus on emotional growth and growth of knowledge, health and physical well-being are also often compromised.

A community is not for sissies. Just like Yin and Yang, there are positives and negatives in anything. Being part of a community is no exception. You will find much good in interacting with others, sharing, and learning as you grow within the community. At the same time, you do open yourself up to emotional pain. You find yourself open to some negative people. And not everything that you learn will turn out to be true.

This does not mean we’re better off walling ourselves off from the community. For good within the community far outweighs the bad. What we need to do, is to go into the community as I believe one great person put it, “as gentle as lambs, and is wary as wolves.”

The real trick is to absorb everything you can and then weigh it. Do your research to know what’s true or not. And, do your considerations to understand the meeting of what you have learned and whether it is good or bad based on the morals of the community, and more importantly within your framework of right and wrong within life. Only then, do you really know if this knowledge is relevant, accurate, and helpful.

Utilize and grow with the right and confident knowledge. Do not dismiss or flush out of your system the false and harmful knowledge. Instead, keep a file in your mind of things that are negative or untrue. Having the record on hand helps you from having to relearn or possibly remaking the same mistakes.

Author: Mike Balof

A retired Air Force Master Sergeant, Mike used to lay in bed at night and worry about what would happen if his plant closed or found himself without a job. One day his plant closed. Rather than panic and hysteria (OK, maybe a little) Mike found himself carried away on the adventure of his life. Mike started with the best job he ever had working at Home Depot. He spent 8 years working with job seekers at a local workforce center, helping them to find employment. He then started his own company developing courses, writing books and urging others to follow their own paths into the future. Mike holds a Master of Arts in Adult Education and Training and a Bachelor of Business Management, earned through the University of Phoenix and an AAS degree in Electronics Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Force. Mike is a member of the Delta Mu Delta Business Honor Society. View all posts by Mike Balof