Sometimes lessons come in the form of mistakes, whether they be personally yours or lived vicariously through someone else.
Life is made of choices. And while I strive to be someone who makes “good choices” that are affirmed by others as “good choices”, sometimes I make choices that are grey.
And then, because they’re grey, I’m met with: “Don’t go in the grey area! You don’t belong there!”
Most of the time, I agree— LIVING in the grey area fosters confusion and it can be harmful.
But sometimes by making choices in the grey area, you can be lead to lessons that help affirm that you don’t belong there, or maybe it was a fun one-time experience or celebration that you’d like to not experience again, or maybe you just feel neutral about it: it didn’t add anything to your life but it also didn’t take anything away.
Regardless— these grey area choices from time to time don’t devalue your morality or integrity. They create questions to allow you to be more specific on what experiences you want to choose to repeat and what experiences you don’t want to be apart of.
Sometimes that means learning your lessons the hard way. And I’ve had plenty of those.
Sometimes I’ll choose the hardest way to climb a mountain: I’ll get scratched up by weeds, bitten by bugs, injured from the terrain, and frustrated at the route that I chose.
But sometimes it’s your hindsight from your actions that creates your own discernment which can be the most valuable attribute you can develop for yourself. And sometimes that comes from choosing the hardest way to climb a mountain.
I used to stick my nose up at people’s choices that left me without the humility to look at my own and learn from them. I used to think “I may not be perfect but at least I’m not as bad as them!” The sheer evidence of that pride is the very reason that I was the EXACT same as the people I was judging whose choices I would never choose for myself.
I don’t recommend living your life in the grey area. But it’s in the aftermath of making grey choices that you’re forced with a decision:
“Is this the direction where I want my life to go?” Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t.
To those who say, “You don’t belong in the grey area!”
I would say you’re right: I’m not choosing to live there. I’ve lived enough life to know not to do that. But I admit I do make choices in the grey area from time to time. And I have no doubt that as I continue to grow and mature that grey area will get smaller and smaller.
But it’s in the experience of those good, bad or grey neutral consequences that force pause for moments of self-reflection.
Your grey area and mine may not be the same.
Different paths, different experiences, different journeys.
But ultimately, when you boil it down, every day we’re given choices. And the ones you make may be good, bad, or grey.
It’s in those moments of experiencing those good, bad or neutral consequences that we’ll discern what we stand for and what we’ll walk away from.
Your choices may be disappointing to those in your life. But you’re the one who has to live with who you’re becoming. If you want to redirect your life, you have the power to do that.
The goal is to learn what you can, with the choices you make, and still find a way to refine the person you are through growth, self-reflection, self-awareness, integrity, wisdom and discernment of those choices.
These virtues don’t develop in a day. As a person who is just a few days shy of 28, I can attest to that.
But I’m on my road to self-discovery, and my identity that’s been developed thus far has deep-seeded roots. Any “bad” or “grey” decisions or “decisions with good intentions but bad consequences” will be pruned so I can flourish, that much I am sure of and have faith in.
andrea statler 