Tag: lies

  • Reinvention

    Reinvention is probably the most daunting aspect of life. It’s that moment when I find myself in a space that I’ve outgrown without having a new space that I’ve grown into. It’s a scene I’m familiar with. Along with most cycles, and there have been many, comes the reality of having to discard expensive relationships and adopting new ones. The more cycles I go through, the more exhausting the reinvention process becomes. The exhaustion, which I believe is quite closely related to my tolerance levels, suggests that perhaps I have not fully discarded some of the remnants of those relationships that have proven to be toxic.

    In discarding something, if traces remain, it must imply that it has not been fully discarded. I think the same is true for relationships. If I fully discard it, there won’t be any unexpected moments of yearning, or wistfulness. The ones I fully discard will leave my mind until something external reminds me of them. Even then, that reminder serves as nothing more than a recollection of events without any feelings of regret or subdued anticipation. They hold no link to the present life that I live. However, I’ve found that the ones that I didn’t fully discard are the ones I recall in moments of present betrayal. When I’m feeling weak or being deliberately self-loathing, I use those remnants to draw parallels between the betrayals in order to convince myself that it must be something about me that caused them to treat me that way. Those moments of self-loathing fades quickly to reveal that it’s not a sincere reflection. Instead, I’ve found that I do that in the hope of restraining myself from embracing such relationships again because the more we convince ourselves we’re not worthy, the less likely we’ll be to embrace new realities.

    My passion to embrace life dictates that such restraint only lasts for as long as the pain of the betrayal lingers. It’s not long before life starts tugging at my heartstrings, nudging me back to reality while I hesitantly push ahead, occasionally looking over my shoulder as if to reassure myself that the decision I needed to make was made with good reason, and with good intent. Sometimes, just sometimes looking back hoping to discover that I was wrong to give up on those relationships just yet, but rarely finding such reason to back track.

    I’ve learnt that holding on to relationships, most often not romantic ones, in the hope of still realising the potential and the beauty that I know is possible from that relationship taxes me more intensely than any cost it bears on them, People expect too little from themselves, while I always see more. Fighting for someone to rise above their decaying state often leaves me with the stench of such decay while they assimilate and thrive in surroundings that echo their weaknesses, which they interpret as strength, while they erode on the inside knowing that they’re hiding from the greatness they desire for themselves.

    Reinvention is based on the innate need to thrive in the face of adversity. It’s a courageous statement made by those that will not be put down, nor kept down. Those that choose to reinvent themselves are the ones that don’t allow life to define them. They define life. It takes an obstinacy of spirit, and a disregard for the contempt of the meek, when we abandon the failures they wish to savour, because it is all that offers them significance, while the rest of us choose to be significant for more than just feigned attempts at living. Each time we rise to face a new challenge we know that there are thousands waiting patiently to see the outcome before they commit. They are the opportunists that associate with power and success and delude themselves into believing that they yield it.

    Realising the futility of their superficial minds makes it easy to disregard their taunts when we fail, because even in failure we have tasted more success than those that live safely and insincerely.

    P.S. There is an arrogance that has crept into my writing over the years. Sometimes I feel a need to retract and clarify, in the hope that I won’t be seen in ways that I despise in others. However, I believe that in a world where individuality has resulted in an isolation of spirit, it’s more important to be bold and face potential humiliation, than to be safe and amicable and leave no imprint on this world in the very short time we have here. Besides, humiliation is only so if I care about the opinions of the spineless. I don’t.

  • The Thief of Yesterday

    Living in the past is often recognized as unfortunate or sad, or at times it is seen as pathetic or weak. More than this, I think it is a sign of ingratitude. Carrying around our burdens that have long since left us simply says that what we have available to us now is irrelevant because what we wanted then was never achieved. The logic baffles me, which is why I often find myself scathing in my response to those that consistently dwell on insecurities from a time when they may have been overwhelmed or cheated out of a good life, if their current state offers them more than they were ever cheated out of to begin with.

    I look around me and I find no shortage of examples of people that are so self-loathing that they become egotistical in the process. That’s not as contradictory as it may sound. The egotist, by definition, is excessively self-absorbed. Strange though that we only associate this trait with those that seek to embellish their lives for show, but fail to see the same loathsome tendencies in those that decry their lives for pity. When we fear success, but seek it desperately, the angst it creates leaves us desperate to hide our weakness while soliciting pity from the world by presenting our inner struggles as struggles against this harsh and cruel world. The irony though, is that it is that very same insincerity that makes this world harsh and cruel. Therefore, it’s quite superficial for the contributors to that state to be the ones complaining about it.

    Insincerity is called for when we want to be seen as something we inherently believe is not true about ourselves. Or worse, something we believe we’re incapable of achieving. Most often the need to be seen as successful is greater than the need to be true to ourselves, and so the result leaves us creating facades and elaborate images of a perfection that eludes us. The conflict this creates within us feeds the self-loathing until it becomes who we are, and we fail to see what we were fending off in the first place. Some believe pity is called for when faced with such feebleness, I disagree.

    The harshness of reality has always been a greater teacher than any fairy tale ever was. Cajoling and condoning only reinforces the very same egotistical behavior that started the cycle. However, given the weakness in most to want to be seen as likeable and huggable and amicable and all those ridiculously juvenile aspirations, it’s no surprise to me to see that the majority of advice dished out at times like these is to embrace and support and pacify, rather than to dish out a healthy dollop of tough love.

    More than tough love, there is a self love that is called for. Not the sugar coated type, but the one that insists that if I don’t take care of myself first, I won’t be of much use to others. The more I deny myself the right to move forward in life, the more likely I’ll be to hold others back. For every person that needs to be cajoled and molly coddled (I despise these terms!) there is someone that is focusing on cajoling and molly coddling instead of growing in their own lives. I can hear the clamour of the idealists chanting in the background that such compassion in itself offers growth, but they confuse compassion with excessive accommodation.

    One verse from the Qur’an always prompts me back to reality, and that is that there is no burden that will visit a soul that is greater than that soul can bear. This has so much truth in it that it makes the fickleness of many that much more contemptible. Not because the verse prompts us towards intolerance for the struggles of others, but because for me, it reminds me that just as I must find the capacity and ability to deal with what comes my way, so too does everyone else. I am no more special than the next person, but the moment I slip into a self-defeating pathetic state that suggests that the world must stop and recognize my struggle before I will rise above it, in that moment I become a burden rather than a blessing to those around me.

    We all have a limited capacity to deal with strife in our lives. Yes, you read correctly, I believe it is limited. However, that limitation is largely defined by two key reasons of who we are as individuals or human beings. The first reason being our ability to live in the present moment and making conscious decisions about what is worth holding on to versus what we should let go of. The second reason being the subconscious tolerance level we set for ourselves. A level that is most often dictated by our ego rather than the practical reality of what we’re faced with.

    The thief of yesterday creeps in and destroys the beauty of the present moment when we convince ourselves that until we receive the desired affirmation, acceptance, inclusion, or validation that was missing yesterday, we are unworthy of embracing the beauty of today. Until we achieve that moment of perceived significance in the eyes of the insignificant, we prevent ourselves from moving on. It’s a load of hogwash that destroys more than the rejection we originally experienced. It’s a juvenile cry to the world to see my significance, and my strength because of how much I’ve endured for so long, rather than to cherish my own strength, internally, when I realise that it will take a lot more than the fickleness of others to knock me down.

    I wish there were more people with such resilience, spunk, attitude, or whatever it is that you choose to call it. More people that are recognised to be a bad ass, or a difficult character (for the right reasons), because that is the seat of passion for life. Not in the loins, but in the heart. Conviction to shape your future, rather than the meekness to be shaped by your past. History has its place, but only to inform us of where we went wrong, not to define what we’re worth.

    Investing in the weakness of others has its place, but only for enough time as is affordable to pull them forward, out of their abyss, and into the beauty of the present moment. Some would argue that a life sacrificed towards this achievement may yield the strength of a saved soul that could change the world, but I would argue that such a sacrifice denies the world of the beauty that you could have shared instead.

  • The Projection of Rage

    There is very little else that enrages me more than the sight of parents that project their insecurities on their children. Parents that feel insecure about where they’re at or how they’re perceived by society and then over compensate by supposedly making sure that their children are not going to be perceived in the same way. The coward’s way of life is to live vicariously through others. That’s safe, risk averse, and effectively protects you from being perceived as a failure. That’s not life. That’s fear.

    But it’s not only parents that project such fears on their children and then raise sheltered or dysfunctional charges. It’s a practice that is almost pervasive these days from governments to organisations to almost every social structure we see. It feels like we’re living in a world where everyone has to defend their claim to significance, and those that feel like they don’t have one, associate themselves with causes that justify their rage at feeling insignificant. Countries that have military might will exact respect through force, or impose their beliefs through occupation, while organisations do the same through developing lethargic hierarchical structures that disempower while holding accountable those without authority.

    Behind all of this aggression lies flawed human beings that lack conviction or sincerity, and therefore leverage the tools and resources at their disposal to make a point that would otherwise go unheard. The climb to the top therefore becomes one of self-enrichment rather than servitude. It is therefore no wonder that those that occupy public office, or positions of ultimate authority, rarely use it for the benefit of the masses, but instead aim to benefit their revered peers instead. It’s a corruption of the soul that leads to a vapid life. A life that feels so empty that the only way to fill it is through the acquisition of trinkets and distractions, and the exercise of authority over subjects that have no means to retaliate or protest.

    The individualistic and narcissistic tendencies of the modern day interpretation of human rights and the rule of democratic law has created a cesspool of moral and ethical degradation that celebrates the implosion of human dignity. We’ve created structures and protocols that pacify our innate conscience so that we are not deprived of sleep at night, but we live the same indignity we impose the moment we find ourselves deprived of the resources we once wielded.

    For governments it’s a coup or a landslide defeat when being removed from power. For organisations, it’s the cheque book holders that dethrone the arrogant heads that no longer serve them well. For society, it’s the leaders that fall from grace when their morally objectionable behaviour that is celebrated in private becomes public. We only seem to be called to account if the common knowledge of our excess indulgence becomes noted by those perceived to be our moral authorities, otherwise turning a blind eye works well because we have much that we wish others would overlook as well.

    We’re a society that resides in glass houses. We lament the erosion of dignity and peace, but refuse to acknowledge our contribution to it. This is not a rant, it’s a lament. We’re so focused on appearances, perceptions, and reputation, that we dare not disappoint the expectations of those that need our fickleness as a yardstick against which to measure their own.

    Society, of which I am a futile member, have become nothing more than a projection of rage on that which we cannot influence, or prevent. We are enslaved, more by our fears of being human than by any system imposed on us. Authenticity is rare. It requires an embrace of who we are, and a conviction in who we want to be. Most are willing to settle for the facade, because the substance appears far too daunting to pursue. The path of least resistance has never been more appealing to the meek than it is now. It is therefore no wonder that we are meek in conviction, and bold in oppression, of ourselves, and those around us.

    [This turned out to be more cryptic than intended]

  • The Silent Statement

    My thoughts are often as complicated to grasp as my writing is to read. I sometimes read through some of my older posts and wonder how anyone could have gotten the point when I struggle to follow the thought process myself. I used to relate it all much more simplistically in the past. It was relatable, not just to me, but to others that it resonated with. It’s not so easy to relate anymore. I find myself slowly receding into silence again. It’s like I’ve come full circle without having completed the journey. The contradiction glares at me while I try to make sense of it all.

    Silence often says more than any vocal statement we make. It’s the language of both lies and compassion. For me, it’s the language of understanding. When I’m inclined to believe that my perspective will most likely be misunderstood or unappreciated, I tend towards silence. It’s my restraint and my statement. It restrains me from verbalising much that will be found offensive, often because of the harsh truth it contains given my poor bedside manner, and it’s my statement because I choose not to engage about something that I believe will not have a meaningful outcome. That’s how I use silence to make my statement.

    Unfortunately there are too many that use it for very different reasons, the most common of which is to avoid being perceived unfavourably. In those moments when the truth is needed for closure, to understand the reasons for betrayal, or to know why the good we put forward was reciprocated with dishonesty or insincerity, silence cuts sharper and deeper than any harsh truths that could have been offered. In those moments the silent one tries desperately to hide their shame while maintaining a facade of arrogance or feigned hurt. Silence, in moments like those, is employed for no reason but to save the betrayer from having to share the truth of their betrayal.

    I think it gets worse when we hold the key to justice but deny the rights of the victims when we choose not to get involved because of the potential repercussions for us. At times when world powers abstain from voting or acting against rogue nations or human scum in order to retain political alliances, their silence does to the victims of those oppressors what the silence of a lover does to their no-longer-beloved. The impact is the same, it’s only the scale that differs.

    Every betrayal destroys a soul, and every soul holds within it an entire world. Each betrayal forces a reinvention of that soul, and each reinvention creates a more brittle soul. Brittle is not necessarily weak. It simply becomes more unpredictable as it gets closer to its limit. Fortunately for most, that limit is significantly more than most because of the reinventions. But when it is reached, the brittle snap that ensues leaves a wake of destruction that can rarely be understood.

    But there’s a more important point I wanted to make about how we use silence for selfish purposes. Perhaps my use of silence is not as noble as I’d like to believe it is. Perhaps just writing this post will provide insights that will disarm me at important moments when others will correctly interpret my silence and take the offence I was hoping to spare them instead. Perhaps there will be none of that because as we’ve seen so often, a shared sin is often overlooked because the collective guilt pacifies our conscience anyway.

    I think we all use silence in this way. I think the silence we maintain at times when we should be outspoken or brutally honest reflects our priorities in that moment. If speaking out will result in an increase of clutter or responsibility beyond what we currently wish to bear, then silence becomes the obvious choice.

    Another incomplete thought process. I know there is a truth in there somewhere…but like life, the essence of it eludes me.

  • Conviction

    I always assumed that the key driver that prevented people from making the changes in their lives that they knew needed to be made was a lack of courage. That lack of courage I always assumed to be the result of fear to embrace the new while giving up the comfort zone or the dysfunction that we’ve grown to cope with. But after an interesting discussion with an undefined acquaintance yesterday I realised that there may be another dynamic to all this that I failed to notice. That dynamic is the issue of pride. Pride is what keeps most of us stuck in ways that we know are sub-optimal in our lives, but we stubbornly persist in our ways because backing down is so strongly associated with failure.

    I think in that lies the key to understanding the influence that pride has on our convictions. Convictions, I’ve always believed, is a reflection of priorities. That which we place more emphasis on will receive a greater investment of energy, while everything else will fall in line behind that. So if the way we’re perceived by others is a higher priority than the way we find contentment in our personal space, then it stands to reason that we will nurture those behaviours that sustain that perception rather than make the adjustments that will give us peace. Say hello to chronic ailments and mental disorders. But I’ll leave that rant for another time.

    The cycle doesn’t start/stop there because the question then arises as to what it is that influences the priorities that we choose for ourselves? The fact that these priorities are a result of an evolutionary process as we grow and is most often not a distinctive thought process that we experience consciously implies that we’re mostly unaware of these priorities that drive us. I guess in this case priorities are pretty much the choices we make in life. When those choices are well-informed, they serve us well. When they’re not, they drive us towards nurturing perceptions rather than substance.

    The underlying drivers that prompt us to make these choices are our beliefs in our ability to be successful in the choices we make. More simply stated, if we are confident we’ll be successful, we’ll be more inclined to pursue the change or the improvement. But if we doubt our ability to reach that goal, we’ll compensate by finding distractions or excuses as to why it’s not possible or important for us to pursue it. That’s where that pride factor comes in. The more proud we are, the less likely we’ll be to expose ourselves to situations where failure is a real possibility. The only time we pursue such ‘risky’ endeavours is if we believe that the repercussions of not doing so would be more severe than the repercussions of failure, which brings us back to the issue of priorities.

    If it’s more important for me to maintain the façade I created about the perception of success that I think others hold of me, I will sacrifice relationships or rights that others have over me, because fulfilling those rights or maintaining those relationships is not as important to me as being perceived as a success. Success in this case is not limited to material targets or wealth, but can also relate to simple things like being seen as independent, aloof, or righteous, to name a few examples.

    Taking all this back to the opening thoughts, the correlation between the perception of failure if we back down, versus the pride of not wanting to be seen as a failure explains why it is that even in the face of overwhelming odds, we sometimes hold on to behaviours that we know are detrimental to our wellbeing. When the motivation to move forward is greater than the motivation to maintain the façade, that is when conviction will triumph over cowardice. However, I guess if we really wanted to, we could argue that conviction in maintaining the façade is what drives that behaviour as well, so it may be safe to say that conviction can be misguided if pride steps into the equation. And pride, as we know, is a result of focusing on what others think of us rather than being true to what we think of ourselves.

    Perhaps conviction is more accurately associated with the latter, as in how we perceive ourselves? Pride prevents honesty in that introspection process because if we perceive ourselves through the eyes of others, we immediately curtail perspectives that may uncover flaws that we know will detract from that perception. This thought process is exhausting. I think that’s a pretty accurate reflection of why most people avoid it, and as a result, why we have so few that act with meaningful conviction and so many that behave like attention whores or victims to society. I suspect there isn’t much difference between the two.

  • Once I Know Why…

    I find it strange when I encounter people that are convinced that only once they understand why they made the mistakes they’ve made will they be able to move forward in life. Or worse still, why they were treated the way they were, only then will they expect or demand better. The irony in this is so blatant that it’s like not noticing the air you breathe until someone suffocates you. Funny how this thought process is equally suffocating and stifling to those that subscribe to it.

    Why then do we insist on knowing why before we’re willing to take the next step? I mean, we wouldn’t be able to tell that we were treated badly or that we made mistakes unless we knew the opposing truth to it, right? In other words, the moment I know that I want or deserve something better, it means I know what I don’t want. Again a blatantly obvious truth that most miss. So the question then arises as to why it is that we choose not to act on this knowledge?

    Some of it I think stems from a social conditioning that suggests that if you didn’t come up with the answers when you were sent to your room to reflect on your bad behavior, then you remain in the naughty corner until you do. That might work until you reach the age of independent thought, but the moment that age is reached, that excuse or crutch falls away. As usual, to best demonstrate a point we must take it to an extreme, so let’s consider the following scenario.

    If I place my hand on a hot stove, I know I will burn. I also know that in future I don’t want to burn, unless you’re a twisted sadist, in which case your problem is much bigger than this. Actually not, but let’s chat about that another day. Anyway, so it doesn’t make sense for me to continue to place my hand on that hot stove simply because I am not yet fully familiar with the mechanics or chemistry that causes such burn to happen. So in future, I will either use tools or apparel that will prevent me from burning because I still need that hot stove, or I will find a safer means to heat my food, like a microwave perhaps.

    Simple analogy, but apparently not so simple to implement. I think the difference between this and life is also simple. We don’t ever have hope that the hot stove will be able to heat our food if kept cool. So we have no expectation of the nature of the stove to change, or the need for heat to be different. So I guess we could either choose to eat cold or uncooked food, which is distinctly unpleasant at most times, or we adapt our approach to get what we want without harming ourselves in the process. Imagine what it would be like if the food thought it was unworthy of being heated when the stove was cold? Or maybe it would taste better if only the stove would heat it without getting so hot? Or maybe the stove could see how beautiful all the little ingredients were that made the food such a wholesome meal and it would heat it more gently and appreciate each grain of salt and each curry leaf for the struggle they went through to get there?

    Seriously though, we get caught in a cycle that causes us to resent ourselves for not being worthy of better, of hoping that the aggressor would be kinder because we can absolutely see with total conviction how capable they are of such kindness and how beautiful they will be in the process, and most importantly, we’re afraid that if we let go, we may not get anything better or at all to replace it.

    It all comes down to self-worth. If we don’t believe we’re worth more, we’ll find reasons to resist making the changes we need to make because we’re unlikely to reach the point when enough is enough. At some point we became convinced that unless we have the answers for the past, we cannot progress into the future. What rubbish! The moment we know better from worse, we can make a choice for better. The moment we allow ourselves to experience better, we’ll automatically realise why worse was not good enough. All we need is to know what is preferred, but not always do we need to know why it is preferred.

    The way forward is really simple, but requires courage. Do the right thing for the right reason at the right time and everything will be just fine. Stop. That conversation you just started in your head about how do you know when it’s the right time, or what the right reason is, etc., just stop it. That is the circular drivel that keeps you grounded in the past. Focus on the present. And that means that you don’t focus on how you’re perceived, because how you’re perceived requires a projection into the future based on your past experiences, which means you are not present. So let’s try again, focus on the present. Yes, the moment in which you are acting or making a decision to act. In that moment know what you’re feeling and know what outcome you desire. If your decision contributes towards that desired outcome, do it. If not, who are you trying to appease, and are they important enough to appease?

    I suspect you just started another internal conversation about what if you see their importance and that you’re hoping that by doing what you think you need to do they may just realise how important they are and therefore it makes it important to appease them…exhausting, isn’t it? It’s a simple process to achieve better, but self-doubt which is spawned by a low self-worth makes it seem impossible.

    You don’t always have to know why. You just have to know why not. Start there. The rest will follow. Let a stove be a stove and stop hoping for it to be something else.

  • The Egosystem

    Egosystem (n) – A complex set of defenses designed to stave off criticism or intelligent conversation with the aim of retaining our preferred status quo. In the corporate world, often presented as a plausible excuse to resist change and establish empires.

    It’s the same egosystem that causes us to grow defensive in the face of opposition, where we feel persecuted if our opinion is not accepted. The irony is that we employ such defense mechanisms with the aim of protecting ourselves from a perceived threat, when in fact that defense is what harms us most.

    Exhausting is the effort it takes to wear down such defenses so that a whole life can be lived. Exhausting for both the whistle blower and the victim. We’re often so focused on defending ourselves from being the perceived victims of circumstances and others around us that we fail to protect ourselves from becoming victims of ourselves.

    In a world that is engineered to create victims in order to create new capitalist markets, the corrosive mindset that it spawns quickly sets the tone for how we perceive our worth relative to the world around us. I used to think that I interacted with various ecosystems as I worked my way through life, or simply through an average day, but the longer I live, the more I realise that it is the egosystems that drive the events around me rather than any ecosystem I previously perceived.

    When I fail to recognise those egosystems, I inevitably get drawn into it and find myself trying to defend my contribution in a space that is already contaminated by the egos of others. There is no value that can be demonstrated in such a setting. You either play to the egos that you’re surrounded with, or you disrupt. When you play to it, you become the disrupted and inevitably find yourself toeing the line to a tune you didn’t choose. But it offers inclusion and feigned acceptance, which is comforting at a superficial level. But because most of us live superficially, we willingly subscribe to such a toxic social setting. Not always limited to our social circles though, and in fact, more prone to exist in our professional circles where almost everything becomes a measuring contest.

    However, when I do become aware of the egosystem that putrefies the air around me, my instinctive response is to disrupt. It’s that long held belief of mine that the arrogant must be treated with arrogance, which has served my sanity well, but my bank account and social circles have suffered as a result. Hypocrisy seeps to the surface when I find myself restraining myself in the face of such isolation or disruption because I lack the will to trudge through the mire that often follows such conviction. But I placate myself by believing that similar to arrogance, hypocrites deserve a dose of hypocrisy. Do I then willingly contribute to the cesspool that I despise? Probably. But I find it acceptable as a response to those that refused to respond to the wholesome goodness of my ego, and therefore deserve a taste of my alter-ego instead.

    One of the most scary thoughts for me has always been the knowledge that if I had to embrace the vile behaviours of those around me with the same vigour and conviction as I do my current set of principles, I would be devastatingly effective at politics. Yes, I know, that must sound so arrogant, but that is exactly the point I am making. Being arrogant does not require conviction in principles. It simply requires an indulgent mind bent on self-enrichment and consumerism. Pretty much the ingredients needed to sustain a destructive egosystem.

    We’re all capable of being assholes, so a successful asshole is not one that should be celebrated because there are too many principled fools that fell as a result of their manipulations. But principled fools don’t seem to garner much respect either because they appear naïve and foolhardy in their convictions, so it is of little surprise that there is not much respect in this world, let alone respect for the world we live in. The ecosystem of earth is being contaminated by the egosystem of us, but we seem to be looking for answers everywhere but at home.

  • Models of Harm

    The formative years. It sounds like such an innocent time in our lives when we’re absorbing all these great life experiences that will one day shape our characters as adults. We unwittingly adopt the behavioural tendencies of those around us, including those we later despise and those we hold dear. Sometimes specific moments become etched as defining moments that we never fully understand but can always recall with vivid detail even though it seemed like just a fleeting moment of no consequence at the time. However, most of the time the less pleasant experiences are not etched as memories, but instead as fuel for our defenses that are formed without specific choice on our part.

    As a child, I think it’s perfectly normal to block things out in order to remain resilient. In the absence of any mature coping mechanisms at that early age, forgetfulness and forgiveness, although not conscious choices, serves us well. However, in the process, it shapes our perspectives of the world that either manifests itself as healthy or destructive later on. This, more than the memories that are etched in our minds that we recall with vivid detail, is the real threat to our sanity as adults. The themes that carry through those periods of ‘forgive and forget’ defines our sense of self-worth, but more importantly I believe it defines our belief in what our contribution towards society can be (not will be).

    If we constantly forgave the spiteful, selfish, or abrasive acts of others towards us, we’re inclined to grow up believing that we should expect nothing less, and therefore slip into a victim state of mind. We become subservient and enslaved to the point where the absence of an opportunity to be subservient may result in us growing excessively despondent in the belief that we are not worthy enough for anyone to seek our subservience. In other words, if I don’t find a setting in which I can be of service to a higher authority that I recognise as such (not necessarily a religious or spiritual one), I will most likely feel incomplete, unfulfilled, or even worthless to those around me. Alternately, if those themes are ones of acceptance, praise, and condoning of my actions no matter what, I would be likely to grow up feeling entitled, arrogant, and generally more deserving of attention and affirmation than others. In fact, not just deserving, but needy of it. Of course, these are just two polar opposites of the spectrum. Sometimes, those that are compelled to believe they are victims fiercely resist the thought and grow aggressive or destructive (or both) in their efforts to demand significance while not having the presence of mind to understand why their approach serves as nothing more than a further erosion of their significance to those around them.

    Such inclinations are easily excusable up to a point. That point arrives when we acquire the capacity and skills to reflect on our behaviour consciously, rather than continuing to live spontaneously without thought or consideration for the impact of our actions on others. I believe this to be true for both the subservient and the arrogant. Those that persist with the patterns of behaviour into their adult years under the pretense that that is simply their nature have in fact not progressed much beyond their formative years. They may have acquired new skills and defined more effective strategies in the years that followed, but the underlying motivation and purpose that drives their behaviour remains unconsciously informed. No different to a child throwing a tantrum for something that they want because they have no better judgement to understand why it may be bad for them or those around them.

    There is a point in all this rambling even though it may not seem so yet. What I’m struggling to articulate is really the crux of why we feel dis-ease in our lives as we find ourselves struggling to achieve things that come naturally to others. We sometimes struggle in our roles in society, or family, often caught between knowing that what we’re doing is wrong, but also not knowing why we are not inclined to do it right. It’s this angst that is often masqueraded as anger or arrogance accompanied by a healthy dose of obstinacy, but sometimes is also manifested in behavioural patterns that go against our nature. It’s a struggle that every one of us lives with to varying degrees of intensity, and I’ve found that those that are most mindful of those early influences in their lives are the ones that are most at peace with these struggles. That doesn’t mean that the struggle ever abates, but simply that it occupies less space in their sub-conscious mind than most of us.

    But there is another important side to this state of reflection and conscious choice. What we often fail to do is separate the role models from the destructive actions. We fail to see their demons and therefore feel trapped in knowing that we disapprove of their actions but feel that such disapproval may be a rejection of them. When they are parents or siblings, or other loved ones in our lives, that tension becomes extremely disruptive to our state of mind. So perhaps the most important part of forgiving and forgetting is not necessarily looking beyond the actions only, but also being able to recognise the role that someone played in our lives while discounting the behavioural associations with them?

    In order to discount those associations I would need to have a frame of reference against which to validate my choice instead. Right there is the origin of such angst. Too many insist on an absolutist approach to all this. We either accept the role of our parents as being definitive, or as being irrelevant. Very few make a healthy choice of determining which were their parents’ demons versus their deliberate efforts. We inadvertently create a model around which to shape our lives without realising its significant parts that in fact operate independent of each other, and in doing so, we adopt the same flawed frame of reference that drove them to unsuccessfully struggle with their demons as they tried to lay the foundations for our lives.

    These models of harm were not imposed on us. We created it from the assumptions we continued to make as we grew older. Chances are, when we lack the ability to look critically but compassionately at those around us, we probably lack the ability to reflect critically but compassionately about ourselves. When that happens, we are likely to subscribe to labels and norms that we don’t fully understand but nonetheless do so because it offers affirmation, validation, or at the least, an excuse as to why we may not be able to fulfill the ideals of the roles that we would want to fulfill instead. It gives us that excuse to say that we can’t control our choices because there is proof that there are others that are similarly afflicted, and therefore it can’t be an affliction, but instead it must simply be a norm that goes against the norm.

    There is strength in numbers. And it’s the strength in the numbers of those we polarise towards that will determine which themes we adopt for our lives. If I surround myself with successful but unethical sales people in my quest to become a successful salesman, I will quickly find reason to justify the unethical behaviour that feeds my success. But in order to do this, I would need to completely discount the ethical points of reference that may have informed my ethics up to that point. If I cannot successfully demonise those points of reference, I will forever be conflicted and will experience dis-ease throughout my career’s successes, even though that may not be visible to those around me.

    We’re all sales people. We’re all offering a product of ourselves to those around us, and depending on how desperately we want to make that sale, we’ll compromise our core values in order to receive the acceptance we desire. How readily we compromise, including what we choose as being our core values, is directly influenced by the models of harm that we formulated as we worked our way through life. Again, a moment of reflection therefore becomes more beneficial than 80 years of prayer.