THESE days, I’m finding that I answer most questions with “it depends.”
I would like everything to be purely black and white, but most of the time the correct answer is usually somewhere in the gray area. Which is not to say that I have the correct answer every single time; I just try to look at all possible angles before saying what I think.
I was raised pretty conservatively, with all questions having to be answered in absolutes. But the more I meet people—and the more I look at myself and my contradictions—I am realizing the importance of absolutes only in the essential things and the principles that you live by.
Most of the other transient things? “It depends.” Is veganism the best diet? It depends on your medical history and your relationship with food now. Is working a 7 to 7 shift unhealthy and self-destructing? It depends on whether you are doing it to “feel” busy or doing it to build your start-up from the ground.
But we need to talk about absolutes before we go on about relativity: certain things will always be wrong no matter what.
Taking another person’s life will always be wrong. Stepping on other people’s dignity will always be wrong. Abusing your body to the point of disrepair will always be wrong. There are certain principles you have to hold yourself to, else you will be swayed by the next #breakingnews headline that someone puts out.
Back to relativity: A mentor of mine always hammered it home to me that before I pass judgment, consider most especially the side of the person or people I disagree with.
That part is a tough pill to swallow. I’m a pessimist by nature. Putting myself in someone’s shoes and walking a mile in them is tough for someone like me who is forever going to be the “bad guy.”
In other words, I would rather be right than be kind. I would rather win the argument and lose the person since, in my mind, the person was never worth it in the first place.
So the person who needs this “it depends” message the most is really me. I’m the worst. It’s why it took me so long to reconnect with my old high school batchmates—because I was such a stuck-up holier-than-thou with an archaic rulebook about what was right or wrong. And now that I’m trying to take a stance that’s admittedly more “in the middle,” I could be considered a hypocrite.
True enough, I am. But, as a favorite author of mine says (shoutout to Brandon Sanderson), “Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.”
Relativity really boils down to having a heart for people also. Kids, learn to say “it depends” and don’t become a sugar and caffeine monster like Uncle Jedd.