Hello Beauty.
Today let's explore the idea of being 'good' or 'good enough' in a new light.
Let's come together to DEEPLY understand why this obsession with 'goodness' is rotting our society to the core, and why transcending this myth that you could possibly be anything BUT good is so important.
First begin by reflecting on your own mind, your own thinking, your own self policing around the idea of being 'good.'
- Do you struggle to feel like you are a 'good person?'
- Do you feel like you are never 'good enough?'
- Do you know what your definition of 'good' is? Is it clear and concrete, something you could actively describe to someone who had never heard the concept before and have them be able to perfectly play it out, or is it abstract and more 'philosophical' in nature?
- Where did your definition of 'good' come from?
- What would it look like to be 'good enough?'
- How do you know when you are not 'good enough?'
- Who are your role models for 'good?' How did you decide upon them as being the models you should follow?
- Does this idea of 'goodness' empower you to be yourself in the world, to do what you feel is your purpose and your destiny? Or does it more often squash and squander you and your motivations?
- Does this idea of 'goodness' - and your inherent lack of it, possibly lead to a kind of self fulfilling prophecy? Where you are constantly policing yourself and monitoring your lack of goodness, which then in turn distracts you from actually going out and DOING good?
Take some time with these questions before moving on to the rest of this post. This level of self inquiry will help you to better digest what is to come here 🙂
The Big Problem With "Good"
In my experience, this notion of 'not being good enough' is essentially what keeps us as a humanity locked in the darkness - the lack of consciousness - that is causing all the destruction on our planet we see today.
It is what is causing the war, the starvation, the corruption, the unequal distribution of resources, the pain and all the suffering we see.
When we as a society deeply believe that there is a 'right' or 'good' way to be, and more importantly that we as a humanity or as an individual are not naturally good, we see two fatal conditions:
1. Abdication of responsibility/decision making to 'higher powers.'
2. Apathy and inaction.
What Happens When We Abdicate:
When we believe ourselves to be fundamentally bad, or that we must strive to become good, we then fall into a position of needing someone outside of ourselves to tell us how to live. To guide us. To show us the way.
In this the government, political, educational, law enforcement and religious institutions that we see in the world today are created. We create a society that is so afraid of falling into darkness, and all the horrors what we are sure to be met with when we do, that we allow power structures to run a muck with society, never questioning their 'authority' because we are too busy trying to police ourselves and our every move.
We turn over our powers to these institutions, because we want the promise that if we just follow the rules, if we do what we are told, if we do all the 'right things' we will some day earn that goodness that we do not naturally posses. This makes a society that is easy to control and manipulate for the interests of those in power, because they can basically tell us whatever they want to tell us and we believe them, because we have such lack of faith in ourselves.
This is not a good thing.
This also encourages us to act in 'not good' ways, because we are living up to our expectations of ourselves. The human psyche is more of a self fulfilling prophecy than it is anything.
When you believe that you are bad, flawed, needing policing, you are going to BEHAVE that way. You are going to need policing. You are going to do things that are out of alignment with your health and the health of society. You are going to live up to your own expectations of yourself, and thus drive yourself to believe that you need that outside governing body even more. And so the cycle feeds on itself - you believe you are not good, you act not good, you turn to the institution for salvation, that institution controls you and feeds you more of the idea that you are not good, so on and so forth, round and round it goes.
Lastly, this makes us selfish. This feeling of lack of goodness puts us into a state of fear, which is a state of survival. When in a state of fear we are only concerned with ourselves. With gathering enough resources for ourselves. With acquiring what we think we need to be happy. We amass as much physical wealth as we can, never feeling that we have enough, because of this deep seeded insecurity fear of not enough-ness. We create the conditions for the few having SO MUCH and the many having next to nothing, because we are so afraid and stuck in our imaginary state of lack. We act like literal animals focused on survival only.
What Happens When We Become Apathetic:
"Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is poverty. What is the matter with the rich is uselessness." George Bernard Shaw
This leads to condition two, where we are a society of armchair quarterbacks.
Due to the fact that we so deeply believe in our lack of goodness, we are pre-occupied with trying to become good, and with punishing ourselves for every one of our 'not good' characteristics.
We believe the dictates of the culturally agreed upon 'goodness' and we are then fully enslaved to self improvement at all costs.
This makes us immobile to act in the face of injustice. Coincidentally, often this injustice is perpetrated by the very structures we are looking to for our definition of "good." And we don't do anything about it. We don't act because we think: "Who am I?" "What could I do?" "I am so so broken/messed up/not good, how could I possibly do anything about this?"
So atrocities abondt. We live in a state of perpetual fear, and never act to alleviate the suffering, because we believe so little about ourselves and our power, and we are too afraid and pre-occupied with acquiring resources to protect ourselves from our perceived not enough-ness to notice that we are taking more than our fair share, and causing destruction to the planet and large people groups.
This striving for a goodness that we believe we do not possess is literally the root cause of all our societal issues.
This apathy also stops us from doing any kind of personal growth work. When we are caught in the idea that we are bad, we automatically believe that to 'change' or 'grow' or 'improve' in any way is to admit how shitty we are. And we already feel so shitty, that all we want to do is defend ourselves and where we are. Which is the antithesis of growth and expansion.
So, What Do We Do Instead?
If we were to throw out the rule books, we would all discover that we are all fundamentally good - meaning we don't really want to shit where we eat. We don't really want to fuck others over. We don't want to eat only junk food. Because it doesn't feel good. Being destructive to ourselves and to others feels terrible - and that is the only evidence we need for our innate goodness. That you feel is all the proof that is required.
We may have a brief period of rebellion when we remove the externally imposed rules and regulations around 'goodness' - eating all the ice cream, being a blatant asshole - but eventually we will all journey towards what is right and healthy for us because it feels better to do so, AND we will realize that we are all connected, so what is truly right for one, is not going to cause harm to anyone else. And what causes harm to others, ultimately causes us harm. There is no way around it.
When we learn to trust ourselves, we see that we are ALL fundamentally good.
Then we are creative.
Expansive.
Unique.
Individuals. Not easily controlled and manipulated.
Ready to stand up and create equal opportunity for thriving for all.
Because when one thrives, we all thrive. It is law.
Letting go of the myth of 'not good enough' is literally the MOST important task for all humans on the planet right now.
From there, what do you want to DO with this one precious life? If you are not continually policing yourself, measuring yourself, standardizing yourself, but instead operating under the assumption that while you will continue for the rest of your life to learn and grow, that you are fundamentally GOOD - who are you? What do you want to create and contribute? What stirs your soul? If what you have right here right now is enough for the next step you have to take, then what? What do you want to expand and grow into, knowing this growth is goodness expanding upon itself, not an admission of a past failing?
This freedom will be what changes the globe - one persons mind at a time.
<3
