I’d like to be an encouraging voice for you not to put so much pressure on yourself to always be right or do the right thing.
Ever hear two people argue and think, “Neither is wrong.” Less often, we might think, “Both are right.”
Surely, other people must think this way often also. But in today’s cultural climate, you sure don’t hear it said out loud very often, do you? Today’s culture is obsessed with being right. And we will risk being wrong even for the glory of being right. That makes us think and say some pretty stupid shit.
And, then, because of the social imperative to be right, we will defend our thoughts and words, and sound even more stupid.
We think the same way about things “being true.” If one thing is true, there cannot be opposing truths. That would be a paradox. Our culture is obsessed with denying paradox, resolving coexistent truths.
Think for a moment how easily that leads to thinking and saying outrageously stupid shit.
Am I right or wrong about that?🤪
“I do good things.” Surely, I also do bad things. These are coexistent truths in the sense of sometimes this, sometimes that.
By now, your ego is likely irritated by reading this. “What’s your point, Neil!?” Your ego needs to know my point by now so it can determine whether I am right or wrong, entirely.
Our egos are conditioned to settle this wishy-washy waffling, to pin down ideas, to resolve into black and white, and to pin down people. Yes, to pin down people. Including our very own selves. Our ego wants to control how the rest of the world considers us. It wants us to be the one who tells people how we are. “I’m a good person.”
When you feel busy, overwhelmed, and anxious, it is almost certainly because your ego dominates how you exist in, and interact with, the world.
Your ego insists that you don’t have time for this nonsense. Your ego demands simplification and generalization at the same time. See that? Your ego demands some stupid shit.
Why is your ego in such a hurry? Because it is defensive. It needs to resolve right and wrong – “right” being how IT is.
It cannot abide paradox. “I want you to decide whether you will embrace me or reject me.” After all, that is the realm in which the ego lives. When it is rejected, it is bruised. When it is accepted, it puffs up.
It doesn’t feel so wrong to be ego-driven because that motivates and energizes us.
“Come on! Make a judgment!”
Your ego makes you feel busy and urgent. “I have things to do. I have people to serve. I have a world to save.” It has accolades and achievements to accomplish.
Your ego is in a hurry because it is defensive. Complex thoughts and conversations might expose it as the stupid-shit “place” from which you act and live. Might expose how it drives you to simplification and generalization, which is stupid shit.
“The problem with…”
.
You’re a busy citizen, giving to your community.
You’re a busy parent, giving to your children.
You’re a giving person, taking care of people.
Isn’t this how you are “supposed” to be?
How you “should” be?
Isn’t this how a good person is?
Culture sure seems to be telling you that. “Be right.”
Then there’s a crash.
Exhaustion.
Resentment.
Brokenness.
Well, let’s get busy fixing the brokenness.
I thought I was doing my best, but my best isn’t good enough.
Perhaps you were doing your best, while not being your best?
Perhaps you do all those good and right things so that people tell you you’re doing good and right things.
Why do you crave that?
Because it’s the only language your ego knows.
Right and wrong, and I will not be wrong.
Good and bad, and I will not be bad.
And yet, sometimes you hear two people argue and think, “Neither is wrong.” Less often, we might think, “Both are right.”
But that doesn’t apply to me myself, surely. I always make the right decision. I always do the right thing. Until I realize that I don’t, and I am broken. So I am working on that. I will fix myself. So you go to therapy, and you recognize you’re making progress. But then you backslide. You must fix and heal, because that is the right outcome. You must graduate from brokenness and get a diploma that your healing is entire.
Sometimes, you can’t figure out what is right, but you are still obsessed with it, so you defer to other people.
Is it that you can’t figure out what is right, or is it that you can’t do what is right, or think what is right?
Or,
Are you looking for support, affirmation, confirmation that you are already right as you are?
My goodness, you put a lot of pressure on yourself.
But you don’t want to blame yourself entirely for that pressure you feel. You want to share blame with society, your parents, your employer, your partner, religion… You have adopted external values as your own. Your ego wants to pick and choose the values that other people see as high value. And then you want to blame the source of those values. Ummm, it was your ego that adopted those values. Blame that. Blame you.
Your ego is the doorway through which all those pressures from the outside enter to your inside.
“I’m always the one who has to…”
Finish the sentence yourself. Whatever it is, it will be stupid shit. How many of the things that you do have actually been asked of you? I bet it is far fewer than you think. It must be, because you yourself have often thought, “It wasn’t ME who asked you to do that.”
It’s easy for the ego to hate the world for implying that it should be something other than it is. Blame is a veil for the ego to hide behind. Our own ego can be hidden from our own full self.
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“I’m a fighter.” The purpose of fighting is to win. But if you insist on telling the world that you’re a winner, that just sounds like stupid shit. Everybody wins and everybody loses at one time or another, about something or other. All of us know that, yet we want the world to believe it doesn’t apply to us. Our egos make us say and think stupid shit. And our egos don’t like to be called stupid or shitty.
It’s not the full you who doesn’t like the taste of egotistical people.
It’s your ego that doesn’t like the taste of egotistical people.
You don’t want to be one of those distasteful people.
And, look what has happened…
Am I right or wrong?
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Neil D. 2023-08-11
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