Without ousting myself in any specific ways, I'd like to freely confess that I am the "chief among sinners"': ALL of the ideals and values that I hold, I in fact keep none of them. Most of the time I am inhibited by fear of pain or jail or public judgement should I outwardly play the hypocrite, rather than truly loving the values for their own sake. And worse yet, in the off chance I happen to be acting in decent ways, it is as likely to be out of wanting to be praised, as it is likely to be a case of "Lord thank you that I am not like that worse off person over there".
The remaining bits of decency are probably best explained as "decent upbringing" and "comfortable economic circumstances" rather than any active resolution on my part.
I am basically just a Clever Hans of punishment stick avoidance and vanity carrot chasing conditioning.
:) the funniest part though, is that even after admitting all that, I remain my favorite person in the entire history of all the known universe.
So, perhaps, I highly value humility and kindness to others, precisely because I'm a raging narcissist who is supremely and unreasonably kind to myself.
I’m not sure if it quite applies, but I struggle with being patient. I am in charge of leading a team at my job, and I am patient, understanding, and forgiving with the team. If they make mistakes they all know they can come to me and we will fix it together, learn together.
However, when it comes to myself, I have none of that patience. I am not patient, understanding, or forgiving. When I make a mistake I beat up on myself and I get frustrated. It is easier to solve the problems of others than it is to solve my own problems. It is much easier to say that we make mistakes and that is how we learn when I’m talking about others, but don’t give myself that same grace. I know this about myself, and I’ve always been this way. I’ve tried to change it and not really ever had success in it.
I rarely speak up when someone spouts bigotry. I have an almost pathological fear of confrontation (even writing something in mild disagreement online makes my heart race so hard my watch pings at me to calm down). Instead I distance myself from that person - which doesn’t make the world in any way better. There are some exceptions: most people in my family I would confront and my father-in-law, but we were recently at a family event where BIL and SIL said some questionable things and all I could muster up was a stern(ish) look.
I want to be the kind of person who speaks loud about what I believe. I admire people like that so much. I just can’t get over my own anxieties to do it.
I strongly believe that you should never assume the worst of people, should seek to empathize and understand before casting judgement; that everyone is a product of their environment and deserves at least a little grace, and opportunity to grow. And you know, I think I do a good job of living up to these values. With one exception: I extend no grace to myself. When I make a mistake, even a minor one, all that goes out the window and suddenly I'm seething about how useless/horrible/applicable insult I am, how I'll never change, this is why no one loves me, etc, etc. I'm in therapy for this but I honestly just can't figure out why I'm unable to be kind to myself. Something to do with my parents, I imagine, or society, but my reactionary self-criticism is becoming a real obstacle to personal growth and I don't know how to clear it.
I'm increasingly grappling with my failures to uphold the values of tolerance and non-judgment.
It's horrifying to me that I'm becoming an angrier, less compassionate person because I'm being confronted with real evil done by people who claim they're good and moral.
However much I tell myself that I don't live in someone else's shoes, the worm of contempt writhes and grows fat on my increasingly reflexive irritation and rage over others' seemingly ignorant, spiteful, or malicious behavior.
I'm a queer atheist, but I used to be able to comfortably accept that most people need a grounding of religious faith to find psychological safety and purpose. Now even the most innocent expressions of spirituality grate on my ears. It's not just watching the immense political and societal harm done by the recent spate of performative, politicized moralizing. I'm unstoppably gaining a bone-deep sense that the religious people around me are actively delusional. It seems to me like half of the front page stories on any given news source offer opportunities to despise some fraction of the population because they're afflicted with idiocy or mania. I feel like I'm continually being forced to defend (including in my own head) objective reality.
When you're fearful and in defense mode all the time, it's much harder to maintain empathy. When I speak to an acquaintance or stranger who innocently expresses a religious sentiment, part of me starts scanning everything I've heard from them for negative things - are they anti-vaccination, anti-LGBTQ, pro-gun rights... I'm falling into exactly the reactionary Manichean good vs. evil paradigm that is causing the world to become a worse place. I didn't even have to watch the propaganda, just live with those who do.
I don't want to exist in a perpetual state of simmering rage and disgust at the people around me, who like me believe they're just living their lives.
I hate animal cruelty, and am a vegetarian for a reason. While I try to lessen dairy products etc. it's really difficult to get it out of your diet completely.
I do my best of course, and to an extend its all we can do and my current housing situation makes it nearly impossible to turn vegan. Assuming I get disciplined enough for it.
For myself, I have always valued sharing knowledge. If I understand something or if someone else understands something or needs to know something, I find worth in explaining or being instructed, or engaging in a mutual learning experience, but, in recent years, I have gradually begun to grow more and more resentful as I discover the myriad ways in which so many people within even my own spheres of socialization have been or currently are choosing to weaponize knowledge - lord it over or hoard it from others for their own benefit - or simply willfully misinterpret so many things.
Nuance might be dead; at least, in my lived experience it is. So then the question of ‘What is the point?’ reverberates through every impulse of possibly joining in and sharing in the learning.
Curiosity for the sake of curiosity is met with distrust, and I can well see why. But without that laxity given to open a space for holding up ideas, playing around with them, turning them about, without the trust that we won’t use every new conception to harm someone somewhere eventually - there is no point in engaging with others in such a way.
So, I’ve reached a dead end. I just do not want to deal with any of this, yet this decision also unfortunately leads to a sort of spiritual stagnation.
I want to be a good Dad, to be chill, taking everything with a sense of humor and being willing to forgive my children's mistakes. The polar opposite of my Dad, who I needed to walk on eggshells around, because you never knew when he'd fly off the handle.
I struggle. A lot. I'm a lot like my Dad and I often do rage over stupid shit and get mad at my kids when they absolutely do not deserve it. I lack patience I should have.
I try, at least, to apologize and tell my kids that my behavior wasn't appropriate and I shouldn't treat them like that, but I feel like an abuser going through the cycle of abuse. Abusing, then being apologetic and trying to make it up to them.
I believe in unconditional love, say, as Jesus taught it (without the biases of the people who came after). I believe nothing is more important than acceptance and empathy, and that living for another is worthy, and leads to personal fulfillment and to a better world for all. I know it's also important to care for one's self, but some of the worst people I see care about themselves a lot, just not about anyone else.
As the years go by, I find myself increasingly more bitter and cynical. I don't trust anyone and I can't make a conscious effort to get close to anyone. People always disappoint, and I'm so raw on the inside I can't stand much more of that except in very small doses.
I believe in restorative justice and rehabilitation and that incarceration should be an absolutely last resort and the death penalty should never be considered. Yet a lot of the time, I open the news, and it's really fucking hard to maintain that ideal, even when I know that the preference for punitive justice is cultural and the entire system is rigged against the most vulnerable.
I really struggle with being vulnerable with other people. I want to be able to be able to form relationships with people where I can be open with my feelings, but I really can't.
Literally every relationship in my life I am fully willing to lose. I essentially go into every relationship fully expecting the next time I spend time with someone will be the last time I ever see them. I figure that everyone will eventually grow to hate me, and thus I hide vast parts of myself for anyone I even mildly care about.
And, the corollary, is that every relationship that I form, I am completely willing to burn. I am ready to cut a relationship lose at a moments notice, and never speak to them again.
I essentially put up a façade. I have a list of details about my life that I am willing to provide to people, organized in my head, but I refuse to share my actual feelings and intimate details about who I am.
I really don't want to be this person, and I do this for a few reasons. First, out of a need for control. But I also spent years isolating myself due to mental health issues, and it really warped my views on relationships and people. Finally, I had several friendships that ended due to mental illness on their part, and I've just learned to be detached from it all.
There's not really a good solution to it, I just try a little bit harder with each new person I meet.
I try to use a simple mantra as the highest too level ideal to strive for - just don't be a dick. simple but flexible. I break it all the time, but generally by not thinking, so it's a good way to add little markers to my life to remind me that hey my dude think for a second and be a good person.
for the record I think I mostly achieve it. as someone with a healthy dose of autism/adhd it's sometimes useful to realise by putting something off or not having that chat with a friend actually you might be being a dick, because I'm not always aware of things outside my own small bubble.
it's also useful when someone is annoying or hurtful as a simple start point for analysing intentions. are they taking a joke a little too far but not intending to actually hurt? do they not realise what they are doing? or are they just being a dick.
Without ousting myself in any specific ways, I'd like to freely confess that I am the "chief among sinners"': ALL of the ideals and values that I hold, I in fact keep none of them. Most of the time I am inhibited by fear of pain or jail or public judgement should I outwardly play the hypocrite, rather than truly loving the values for their own sake. And worse yet, in the off chance I happen to be acting in decent ways, it is as likely to be out of wanting to be praised, as it is likely to be a case of "Lord thank you that I am not like that worse off person over there".
The remaining bits of decency are probably best explained as "decent upbringing" and "comfortable economic circumstances" rather than any active resolution on my part.
I am basically just a Clever Hans of punishment stick avoidance and vanity carrot chasing conditioning.
:) the funniest part though, is that even after admitting all that, I remain my favorite person in the entire history of all the known universe.
So, perhaps, I highly value humility and kindness to others, precisely because I'm a raging narcissist who is supremely and unreasonably kind to myself.
I’m not sure if it quite applies, but I struggle with being patient. I am in charge of leading a team at my job, and I am patient, understanding, and forgiving with the team. If they make mistakes they all know they can come to me and we will fix it together, learn together.
However, when it comes to myself, I have none of that patience. I am not patient, understanding, or forgiving. When I make a mistake I beat up on myself and I get frustrated. It is easier to solve the problems of others than it is to solve my own problems. It is much easier to say that we make mistakes and that is how we learn when I’m talking about others, but don’t give myself that same grace. I know this about myself, and I’ve always been this way. I’ve tried to change it and not really ever had success in it.
I rarely speak up when someone spouts bigotry. I have an almost pathological fear of confrontation (even writing something in mild disagreement online makes my heart race so hard my watch pings at me to calm down). Instead I distance myself from that person - which doesn’t make the world in any way better. There are some exceptions: most people in my family I would confront and my father-in-law, but we were recently at a family event where BIL and SIL said some questionable things and all I could muster up was a stern(ish) look.
I want to be the kind of person who speaks loud about what I believe. I admire people like that so much. I just can’t get over my own anxieties to do it.
I strongly believe that you should never assume the worst of people, should seek to empathize and understand before casting judgement; that everyone is a product of their environment and deserves at least a little grace, and opportunity to grow. And you know, I think I do a good job of living up to these values. With one exception: I extend no grace to myself. When I make a mistake, even a minor one, all that goes out the window and suddenly I'm seething about how useless/horrible/applicable insult I am, how I'll never change, this is why no one loves me, etc, etc. I'm in therapy for this but I honestly just can't figure out why I'm unable to be kind to myself. Something to do with my parents, I imagine, or society, but my reactionary self-criticism is becoming a real obstacle to personal growth and I don't know how to clear it.
I'm increasingly grappling with my failures to uphold the values of tolerance and non-judgment.
It's horrifying to me that I'm becoming an angrier, less compassionate person because I'm being confronted with real evil done by people who claim they're good and moral.
However much I tell myself that I don't live in someone else's shoes, the worm of contempt writhes and grows fat on my increasingly reflexive irritation and rage over others' seemingly ignorant, spiteful, or malicious behavior.
I'm a queer atheist, but I used to be able to comfortably accept that most people need a grounding of religious faith to find psychological safety and purpose. Now even the most innocent expressions of spirituality grate on my ears. It's not just watching the immense political and societal harm done by the recent spate of performative, politicized moralizing. I'm unstoppably gaining a bone-deep sense that the religious people around me are actively delusional. It seems to me like half of the front page stories on any given news source offer opportunities to despise some fraction of the population because they're afflicted with idiocy or mania. I feel like I'm continually being forced to defend (including in my own head) objective reality.
When you're fearful and in defense mode all the time, it's much harder to maintain empathy. When I speak to an acquaintance or stranger who innocently expresses a religious sentiment, part of me starts scanning everything I've heard from them for negative things - are they anti-vaccination, anti-LGBTQ, pro-gun rights... I'm falling into exactly the reactionary Manichean good vs. evil paradigm that is causing the world to become a worse place. I didn't even have to watch the propaganda, just live with those who do.
I don't want to exist in a perpetual state of simmering rage and disgust at the people around me, who like me believe they're just living their lives.
I hate animal cruelty, and am a vegetarian for a reason. While I try to lessen dairy products etc. it's really difficult to get it out of your diet completely.
I do my best of course, and to an extend its all we can do and my current housing situation makes it nearly impossible to turn vegan. Assuming I get disciplined enough for it.
For myself, I have always valued sharing knowledge. If I understand something or if someone else understands something or needs to know something, I find worth in explaining or being instructed, or engaging in a mutual learning experience, but, in recent years, I have gradually begun to grow more and more resentful as I discover the myriad ways in which so many people within even my own spheres of socialization have been or currently are choosing to weaponize knowledge - lord it over or hoard it from others for their own benefit - or simply willfully misinterpret so many things.
Nuance might be dead; at least, in my lived experience it is. So then the question of ‘What is the point?’ reverberates through every impulse of possibly joining in and sharing in the learning.
Curiosity for the sake of curiosity is met with distrust, and I can well see why. But without that laxity given to open a space for holding up ideas, playing around with them, turning them about, without the trust that we won’t use every new conception to harm someone somewhere eventually - there is no point in engaging with others in such a way.
So, I’ve reached a dead end. I just do not want to deal with any of this, yet this decision also unfortunately leads to a sort of spiritual stagnation.
I want to be a good Dad, to be chill, taking everything with a sense of humor and being willing to forgive my children's mistakes. The polar opposite of my Dad, who I needed to walk on eggshells around, because you never knew when he'd fly off the handle.
I struggle. A lot. I'm a lot like my Dad and I often do rage over stupid shit and get mad at my kids when they absolutely do not deserve it. I lack patience I should have.
I try, at least, to apologize and tell my kids that my behavior wasn't appropriate and I shouldn't treat them like that, but I feel like an abuser going through the cycle of abuse. Abusing, then being apologetic and trying to make it up to them.
I'm still trying, but it's hard.
I believe in unconditional love, say, as Jesus taught it (without the biases of the people who came after). I believe nothing is more important than acceptance and empathy, and that living for another is worthy, and leads to personal fulfillment and to a better world for all. I know it's also important to care for one's self, but some of the worst people I see care about themselves a lot, just not about anyone else.
As the years go by, I find myself increasingly more bitter and cynical. I don't trust anyone and I can't make a conscious effort to get close to anyone. People always disappoint, and I'm so raw on the inside I can't stand much more of that except in very small doses.
I believe in restorative justice and rehabilitation and that incarceration should be an absolutely last resort and the death penalty should never be considered. Yet a lot of the time, I open the news, and it's really fucking hard to maintain that ideal, even when I know that the preference for punitive justice is cultural and the entire system is rigged against the most vulnerable.
I really struggle with being vulnerable with other people. I want to be able to be able to form relationships with people where I can be open with my feelings, but I really can't.
Literally every relationship in my life I am fully willing to lose. I essentially go into every relationship fully expecting the next time I spend time with someone will be the last time I ever see them. I figure that everyone will eventually grow to hate me, and thus I hide vast parts of myself for anyone I even mildly care about.
And, the corollary, is that every relationship that I form, I am completely willing to burn. I am ready to cut a relationship lose at a moments notice, and never speak to them again.
I essentially put up a façade. I have a list of details about my life that I am willing to provide to people, organized in my head, but I refuse to share my actual feelings and intimate details about who I am.
I really don't want to be this person, and I do this for a few reasons. First, out of a need for control. But I also spent years isolating myself due to mental health issues, and it really warped my views on relationships and people. Finally, I had several friendships that ended due to mental illness on their part, and I've just learned to be detached from it all.
There's not really a good solution to it, I just try a little bit harder with each new person I meet.
I'm judgemental when I shouldn't be. I hate this about myself.
I try to use a simple mantra as the highest too level ideal to strive for - just don't be a dick. simple but flexible. I break it all the time, but generally by not thinking, so it's a good way to add little markers to my life to remind me that hey my dude think for a second and be a good person.
for the record I think I mostly achieve it. as someone with a healthy dose of autism/adhd it's sometimes useful to realise by putting something off or not having that chat with a friend actually you might be being a dick, because I'm not always aware of things outside my own small bubble.
it's also useful when someone is annoying or hurtful as a simple start point for analysing intentions. are they taking a joke a little too far but not intending to actually hurt? do they not realise what they are doing? or are they just being a dick.