Perspective

 I saw this quote today in an "inspirational" picture/ quote gallery.


"In life we do things. Some we wish we had never done. Some we wish we could replay a million times in our head. But they all make us who we are and in the end they shape every detail about us. If we were to reverse any of them we wouldn't be the person we are. So just live, make mistakes, have wonderful memories, but never ever second guess who you are, where you have been and most importantly where it is you're going."

I thought to myself "What a destructive thought pattern, it's all about the single person". This quote is uplifting and empowering to a person and it is also wrong. Let me ask you this; If this were my perspective my life would be all about me, and only me would you want to be in my life then? It doesn't talk about shared memories. It doesn't talk about where we have been, no, it speaks only in the first person and so it is dangerous and destructive to a persons life. This single perspective is the one we must adopt while looking inwards, not while we live our life outwards.

This perspective, the one taken in this quote, is of one persons view point, which is all well and good unless you share your life with someone. The old saying "there is no I in team" holds true here. No one wants to commit to a team in which there are prima donnas. That is the destructive force within a team which will destroy that team. We've all experienced this situation, whether it was in a class where we had to work in a group, or a job we held in which we saw how just one person not working, not pulling their weight, eventually caused everyone to adopt the same attitude and the team fell apart.  It could no longer function.  No one wants to do the right thing while everyone else is taking it easy. No one wants to feel taken advantage of. This perspective doesn't work when it's taken from theory to practice.

If we can be honest with ourselves, we can see how we bring this attitude, however minutely, into our daily lives and we can see how destructive it is. Everyone wants to be the star, that is what movies and television and all marketing has taught us, we all want to be the star. If we look at the dynamics of that what it really is we will find that it's really a want for others to be supporting cast. That is how it works. When everyone is a star no one is a star, so what we're asking of the people in our lives, our loved ones, is to sacrifice their life to be our supporting characters. I would never agree to that. I would never say "Ok, you be the special one and I'll just support you".  We were taught that when the television became our babysitter. We were taught that when those who learned it fast put it to use in Junior High school and became the popular kids. We were taught this when we made it to the "real world" and had this technique, because it's been mastered by this point, used against us because we were a threat to someone's  position. We all perpetuate it daily and our actions are what teach our kids, not our noble words, the words our actions don't reflect.

Yet I'm surprised when someone tries to put me in this dynamic and I react in a volatile way. Why? Because I see in them the same bullshit I'm trying to pull in my life and I don't like it. I don't want any light shed on my own crap, what I want is for someone to tell me how to delude myself from other peoples bullshit in a way which makes me feel better about myself. Hell it is such a need anymore that we have built a market for "self-help gurus" which really only give me a bridge of the river of shit I have crapped out into my life. Real happiness, real tranquility, comes from cleaning up the shit. It is a thankless and tiring job that takes the whole of our lives if we don't take it seriously.  We may peek at it during those dark times in our life when things come crashing down and we always seem to find some other thing to focus on instead of just getting to the job of clearing out the skeletons in our closet and actually being a good person instead of finding new way to fake it or new shiny things to take the focus off the person we are, the person we now feel is unworthy. We hide that person inside and so if we fool someone into loving us we can't believe it because we know who we really are. Who are we fooling? "Three things are not long hidden; the sun, the moon and the truth." - Buddha. The bible taught us "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". If I am a fake, I have to assume they are fake too and it will all be illuminated eventually. So why go through that when it is so much easier to be real?

This attitude of "me & mine" is really only useful when examining our true selves. But how can we do that when we've been a different fake version of ourselves for such a long time. It's like trying to remember your original hair color when you've dyed it for so long. My answer is meditation, but all boils down to introspection. The key point to that is how honest we are prepared to be with ourselves. Have you ever been drunk and said "I'll never do this again, and this time I mean it" haha, no you don't, none of us do when we say that, if we meant it we would do it instead of saying it aloud so we can fool ourselves. Because really? Why say it out loud like that instead of simply doing it? That is what I'm talking a bout, how honest are you prepared to be? because if you're only going to take a brief peek at only the surface stuff, why bother at all? To illustrate the point I'm talking a bout I'll share my moment of clarity. You see my wife left me and took my kids. I don't blame her; I was an asshole to put it mildly. There I was my life had been yanked from under me like some cheap carpet. I was all alone on my couch contemplating just giving up when I saw it. I saw myself and all the jacked up ways I manipulated the people in my life so that I was the star. I saw all of that fade away and it was just me, alone in darkness, in nothing. I was experiencing this, not simply observing it. Then the thought occurred to me that I was really all I had, everything else could change and go away. Then I realized "I'm an asshole, I don't want to spend eternity with an asshole!" I reached a point where I could be honest with myself because I saw how serious the situation was. Then something someone told me when I was young came back to mind. I can't remember who it was but I remember the words clearly "All you have is who you are, all you own can be taken away; even your life so all you have is your character". I realized the full weight of those words in that moment and I saw the inky tendrils of my own bullshit slither into the lives of those I loved and I saw how my tendrils of manipulation caused reactions. Then I saw it, like a field of dominoes falling and how I was responsible for it all. I saw how I could simply be honest with myself, clear out my own crap and then show compassion to those who were still fooling themselves. It is all me going inwards, and all US coming out. I don't want to be taken advantage of, so I won't take advantage. I don't want to be lied to so I won't lie and so on.

So I reach a point where I realize that I can only be happy when I'm being fair and equal, so I search for it always. None of us want to be less than, condescended to, taken for granted, taken advantage of. I say to you this: Fix yourself first, because just like the example we just worked though, no one wants to be first when it means carrying all the weight and expecting them to is the first step to the destruction of that team. I've experienced it so many times in so many settings, I'm sure you have too. So look at this example, take it in intellectually and really turn it over in your mind. Think critically about it and see if it uncovers the truth within your heart. Then you own it, it was your thought. It was simply inspired by other words on a page. Nothing matters unless you believe it for yourself. I mean really believe it, because the difference between believing and wanting to believe is action and the action makes or breaks it. At the end of the day all we want is to relax because we've been on guard all day. We've had out mask on all day and what we want is someone to love us for what is underneath. I find it so absurd that in order to get this what we do is build such a contrast. We make them believe what we are not, what we cannot be, what we wish we were.... what we want to believe.

Happiness is living in harmony with everyone all the time and we always seem to want to find that place by echo-locating them to find out who we are. We start with the solution and attempt to work backwards when all along all it took was a slight shift in our perspective and it was there all along. I went within and cleared house. I owned what I needed to and it saved my marriage, provided a happy home for my children to thrive in and it brought to me immeasurable happiness because they love me for who I actually am because I uncovered it and shared it with them. It's all about your perspective; is it ME? It is US vs THEM or is it simply we? I believe in the power of we, which is essentially love. What do you believe?