“Unless you have a perfect understanding of the principle from which another person acts, it is impossible for you to say that it is bad.” “You cannot understand something and judge it at the same time. The two things are mutually exclusive.” -The Enchiridion of Epictetus.
Thought I betrayed myself. On the contrary, I was honouring myself. We believe guilt will ease the pain. Complacency in disguise -not really. But like most pleasures, it does not last and what might have helped to ease the pain for a bit, quickly becomes suffering. A mental rumination that brings no more than self-pity and victimization.
That is what we do when we put ourselves in a situation where we know we might take the wrong decision. We expose ourselves to the temptation of indulgence. But why? Why on earth would you do that? I thought about stupidity as the root. But let us be honest, life is a bit more complicated than that. And that is the thing. We cannot judge, otherwise, we will not understand, so better to watch out with the labels. I believe, we put ourselves in shitty situations because we are desperately looking to learn, to get the lesson, to understand.
As soon as we realize what was the lesson, the pain really eases. However, that is the hard part, to really get the lesson. For that to happen, we need to be honest, brutally honest with ourselves. Can we? How when we feel embarrassed, disappointed, and confused? Nobody said it was easy. From discomfort and conflict, we grow. And what a great reward! To know you will be a better human being. To put yourself first -not your ego only-, and being patient with your slow learning process, is one of the greatest acts of love and awareness.
How to understand if we are not present? We live between our regrets and in the conscious of endless possibilities. We live in our imagination, in our self-tale story looked from a prism biased with beliefs, so we never truly get to live. We might end up never getting the lesson.
I have met this year. What an intense year it has been! Self-development on steroids. Therefore, I am grateful. My life has changed 180 degrees. It has not been easy. God knows how many tears I have shed. Each event has been a new opportunity to get the most out of it. To receive the waterfall, instead of catching the water bottle.
I have made mistakes. I want to say sorry. Sorry that I treat you as a mean, and not as an end. You were the trigger for me to leap. I want to say thank you. Thank you for helping me to push the growth. I am still getting there, where I want to hold your hand but first, I want to hold mine. I want to love you without anxiety, without fears, without judgment, attachment-free. To honour and treasure you as the imperfect being you are.
“When in doubt, trust yourself.” I do trust myself. I trust I will keep making mistakes and screwing things over. I trust those mistakes will be of better quality and not from mere poor judgement. Trial and error, that is how we grow. As Mark Manson said “Personal growth is quite scientific. Our values are our hypothesis: this behaviour is good and important. That other behaviour is not. Our actions are then our experiments. The resulting emotions and thought patterns are our data. How did it turn out? Did the value get us a better life? Or did it royally fuck us?”.
Brainstorming with Nanda 