Judging from ourselves as the standard of just right

It is a very human tendency to feel that what we do is the standard for what is just and reasonable, especially in grey zones.

We feel our application is the most right way; any more is a bit excessive, any less is perhaps too little.

But us, we are being reasonable.

It can be hard to open one’s mind to the idea that there is a range of what is reasonable, of ways to apply the same principles, a range that very likely extends beyond what we ourselves would ever do or not do.

I try to keep this in mind when assessing people’s behaviour; but it can lead to me devalue the way propels’ behaviour affects me and my own feelings. So I have been trying to be a bit more utilitarian; what works and what doesn’t. I can accept that someone doesn’t have to be behaving in a way that is utterly and completely immoral or unacceptable in every case, without invalidating my own feelings. I am still entitled to accept or reject certain things from my life based on the effect they have on me; whether I could wrote an essay about it or not.

(We don’t have to judge or evaluate everything someone else does, measuring it up to ourselves and our own idea of what is reasonable. But we are also not inherently obligated to stay in all situations we dislike just because someone isn’t a bad person; we don’t have to decide or convince ourselves someone is a bad person to warrant spending less time with them.

The idea that people must be labeled toxic or nontoxic bothers me; i think behaviours are toxic, I think it is more rare for a whole person to be bad or toxic. Not nonexistent, but once we get into the grey zones I doubt any of us are as good at discerning this as we think we are.

Just because someone isn’t toxic it doesn’t mean we have to want to be around them all the time. And just because someone is someone we don’t want to be around so much doesn’t make them toxic.