What is meant by taking the high road?

[Disillusioned]

What does taking the high road mean? Some internet hunting and gathering.

High road refers to a higher moral ground. "Taking the high road" expression refers to one being a "class act" during a very difficult time. Those who take the high road, are demonstrating being honest, fair, and selfless while not being completely defenseless.


Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Bestow compassion on all individuals. The Golden Rule is considered to be the “golden standard” of human behavior; a lofty ideal, but hardly unreachable. There was a time, not long ago, where The Golden Rule was taught to all people, from all countries, all religions, all languages; taught by parents, taught by preachers, taught by wisdom keepers. There are many people today, particularly young people, who have never even heard of The Golden Rule. Today the Golden Rule has been replaced with the slogans: “Every man for himself,” “He or she who shouts loudest is right” and “It’s all about me!” Enter the age of narcissism. One person to champion the practice of The Golden Rule is British Theologian, Karen Armstrong. Karen is a recent recipient of the TED award. Her goal: to create a charter of compassion. Her reason; to move the global community out of despair and narcissism toward compassion and community building.



As young children, our hearts are open to a loving world. As we mature into adulthood, we learn to close our hearts as a means of protection. Yet, that which protects in the short term fosters selfish and narcissistic behavior in the long term. Simply stated, it is ego that derails any effort to practice The Golden Rule. The stress tip for today is to reopen your heart and domesticate the ego. To do this effectively, you must first ask yourself what thoughts, perceptions, attitudes and beliefs (right or wrong) have narrowed the passage of compassion that streams from your heart space. Practicing The Golden Rule means taking the high road with human behavior. It means treating others with respect. Everyone! The first step when taking the high road is opening your heart.

[TooSensitive]

And, we must also open our hearts to ourselves and treat ourselves with respect, too! Love and compassion for others must first come from a place from within, where we love ourselves, too. Not in that narcissistic, selfish way - but in that giving way. We must give to others, but we must also give to ourselves as well.

D, thank you for putting this message out there as another reminder for all to see. It is yet another way of living our lives as God intended us to live them. It is sad when the original message gets lost down through the generations. May it find its way back out there again!

[TooSensitive]

In terms of PA/SA, the low road is the one where we keep ourselves down by accepting this in our lives, b/c it seems that everyone is doing it, and it also feels like the easier road to take, rather than that high road, which does involve a lot of hurt, pain, and feelings of betrayal, if you are a partner; and is the harder road to take, in terms of the amount of inner work which needs to be done to get through.

It becomes easier to take that low road, but there is a trade-off, and a hefty price to pay. With that acceptance of what will eventually erode our souls comes a numbness that we may not even recognize is there. That invisible numbness is what allows us to deal with it all. It takes a lot less work to maintain that, than it does to maintain our wellness, after we’ve allowed ourselves to feel all that pain.

The very thing we don’t even realize we are doing – numbing ourselves down, to bury, which is what we do to cope (which isn’t coping after all) – is also the very thing that keeps us from fully living our lives. We miss out on so much that life has to offer, when we are numbing ourselves down, and automatically doing so, to the point we do not even realize we are doing so. That is so sad, when you think about it.

There are so many lost souls out there, who do not even know they are lost. I am so glad I found myself, esp. b/c before all the devastation that p created for me, I did not even know I was lost already. I had to lose myself again, in a very huge way, before I could find all the parts of me that had always been missing. That is what p did for me, so if I must find a silver lining, that would be it. That would be the one benefit p offered me. In the wake of it, it allowed me to find even more parts of myself, that I did not even know existed. If it hadn’t been for p, I may have never found them.

It has only been through the hard work I’ve done in healing myself as a partner, that I have found all those missing parts of myself, including parts of myself that did not seem to previously exist. I believe they were always there, but I just couldn’t see them yet.