Idealistic Realism / Realistic Idealism: Striving for a Healthy Balance

Today is my birthday, and, as I contemplated what I wanted to share, I decided to write very briefly about the perspective I try to cultivate to direct how I interact with other people.  

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and trust them until they show me they are not trustworthy – and I’m not sure whether that primarily is because of my religion or simply my personality, inherited particularly from my mother (who is schizophrenic and, along with medication, needs peace and a lack of stress in her life to function properly). She was trusting and non-judgmental out of physiological necessity, and that probably rubbed off on me to some degree.

I have come to believe that a generally trusting nature is more healthy than a suspicious, cynical nature – even with the dangers of being too trusting. It’s finding the proper balance of idealistic realism or realistic idealism that is my focus – and that is not an easy journey. It takes conscious effort to avoid being too much of many things, since it’s so easy to gravitate to an extreme.