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Family visited tonight. A young couple who live overseas that we don't see often enough and only get to spend a few hours each year together. However, an interesting story came up today as the guy recently found out that he has a lost (unknown) uncle. After *forty five* years and after his grandmother recently passed, his grandfather announced that he has another son. Based on the type of life the grandfather has led, 

> This news was unexpected.

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![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23tSS9vwnn1vHudqZg9FAyiHVdV6fq9dTBctdeyNusQHf4ekfbfhopq8x2FW45MyzYHRY.png)


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> But not unwelcomed.

In fact, rather than make a fuss about it much at all, the family has reached out and met, spent time together and are getting to know each other. And the guy (who lives out of country) will meet his uncle next week for the first time, and is looking forward to it. It is pretty awesome in my opinion. 

The grandfather who is in his eighties has held this secret for over half his life, doing what he thought was the right thing to do for his wife and family. However, after his wife's passing, someone who cared for daily for 25 years after she had a stroke, he has been able to get over whatever shame and guilt he felt and open up.

Many people have a lot of judgement and take various high-horse moral positions in these kinds of cases, having an opinion about what is right and wrong, what should have been done, and how people should have behaved, and should behave going forward. There is lots of *right and wrong* statements and "What I would do..." statements.

> What people forget is...

Life is messy at times and things can get complicated. Sure, we can and will judge others, but we have never walked in their shoes, we do not have their experiences, and we have very little insight into the situations before, during and after. We are human and will judge, but we should also assume that no matter our opinion, that is all it is - opinion. We might feel correct, but that doesn't make us right.

A lot of people are looking for an easy life. A simple life. Yet it seems that no matter how simple we try to make it, we are going to constantly find ourselves in imperfect situations. It seems a lot of people are looking to lead a comfortable life, without really thinking about whether a comfortable life is actually living. Avoiding the mess by living below our potential, playing safe to avoid risk, and limiting our chances of being hurt, may not be much of a life. Yet, that seems to be the aim for many. 

> No one wants to break eggs.

I believe we make life far more complicated than it needs to be, because rather than acting open and honestly, admitting our faults and apologising for our mistakes, we try to save face by attempting to live up to the expectations of others, of society and culture, and fit in. We try to live lives that are *not our own* and live in secret shame of when we have failed in the eyes of others. We all carry secrets.

>“In every man's memory there are things he won't reveal to others, except, perhaps, to his friends. And there are things he won't reveal even to friends, only, perhaps, to himself, and there, too, in secret. And finally, there are things he is afraid to reveal even to himself, and every decent man has quite an accumulation of them. In fact, the more decent the man, the more of them he has stored up.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

What does "decent" mean?

>Decent
/ˈdiːsnt/
adjective
>1. conforming with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behaviour.
"a decent clean-living individual"
>2. of an acceptable standard; satisfactory.

Do not break eggs. *Conform.*




Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


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