A test of courage

Today I want to talk about the past. Most people tend to look at their past deeds and either use them to bolster themselves up or to hold themselves back. Think about it.

There's the guy who thinks he is better than everyone else because of who he used to be in high school. He was the letter wearing football star and he's still lording it over everyone within earshot about how he is better than them. Look he even has proof! There's his signed mvp ball. And he was homecoming king. Or how about the local chess champion? He's smarter and more important than you because of that one tournament that nobody thought he was going to win.

Or how about the girl who was the head cheerleader? She's prettier and better than everyone else, yes even you and again she has proof. Look at all her trophies. She was uncontested queen of the "in" crowd and acts as if she still is.

And what about all the other guys and gals, the ones who were just middle of the road and didn't accomplish anything great while the others were busy being superstars? A lot of those people look at their lack of accomplishments and beat themselves up about it. They point at their past deeds and say, see I've not done anything of note yet and nor am I ever likely to.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to say that that is complete bullshit. All of it. What makes me say this? There is a card named A Stout Heart, that is part of the Legends of the Five Rings card game that I'd like to quote. It says " The only true test of courage is the last one."

See the L5R card game is about samurai protecting their clans and their empire from evil. Think about it. If a man stands up against evil five times in a row he is labeled courageous and maybe even a hero. But when evil comes around the sixth time, if he runs and hides then he is labeled a coward.

What a man has done in the past gives an indication of how he is likely to act in the future. But it is not your actions in the past that determine what kind of person you are, just as it is not the actions you intend to take in the future. It is your actions in the present that determine who you are and what kind of person you are.Maybe you made the wrong choices in the past. But every now is filled with new opportunities to make better choices.

You are not the same person you were twenty or even ten years ago. The person that had those massive successes or massive failures no longer exists. You are a completely different person with different abilities and different limitations. Don't look to your past to see what is possible for you.

Except as a source of colorful stories about the way things used to be and maybe as learning experiences, ignore the past.  Create a new now that matches your goals and ideals and never look back.

Nice and good. Are they synonyms?

These two words, nice and good are often associated together. When asked to think of the pinnacle of goodness many people will think of someone very much like Aunt May from the Spiderman comics. This imaginary paragon, is poor but still manages to give to charity, goes to church religiously, never hurts a soul, has a kind word to say about pretty much everyone is always willing to help someone else out and is a true pleasure to be around just about all day everyday.

But, other than the going to church part, it is really kind of hard to separate the good things that she does from the nice things. So? Does it follow that being a good person makes one a nice person? Or perhaps it is the other way around. Maybe being a nice person makes one a good person. And, if they are not directly connected, does she do those things because she is good or because she is nice? 

She is both. Aunt May is a good person. She is also a nice person. It is my opinion that Aunt May has the luxury of being perfect because she isn't real. Her motivations and actions sync up perfectly simply because that is how she is scripted to be. We'd like to think that everyone is like that. But how many people really are?

At first glance it might seem to be a difficult thing to pick apart good actions from nice actions, especially when the circumstances are all pleasant. Sure it is easy to do the right thing and be a pleasant person in the best of times, but what about when you are asked to do things that are morally ambiguous or worse yet, when you are asked to do things that you know are wrong? Multiple studies have been done with controlled situations, designed to test this very thing.

A large group of people were individually told that they were going to get a reward for pressing a button as long as they pressed it whenever they were told to. There was a control group for whom the test was nothing more. Would they press the button when told to or not. There was a reward and nothing more. When told to, they all pressed the button as instructed. This simply set up a baseline. It more or less told the researchers something they already knew. When there is a clear reward for taking an action and no compelling reason not to practically everyone will take that action.

Then the real test began. An actor was paid to sit on the other side of a wall from the people being tested. The button was hooked up in such a way as to signal this actor that it had just been pressed. The actor would then cry out and appear to be someone in intense physical pain. Each time the button was pressed their anguish seemed to increase. After five or so button presses the actor "died".

What were the results of these studies? In many cases the people who others thought of as nice kept pressing the button every time they were instructed to do so right up to and even after the actor supposedly died. When asked why, they often replied that they were just following the instructions as they were asked to do. In the second world war there was a very specific group of people that had the same excuse for their extremely heinous actions. You might have heard of them. I think think they were called the Nazis?

Whereas the nice people were willing to inflict pain on others for a reward or just to follow orders, many of the people that others considered rebels, those who were rude, obnoxious, stubborn or defiant people refused to press the button once they realized that there was a direct negative consequence to another human being for their actions.

So. Yeah. I see the difference now. No, they are definitely not synonyms. Most of the people that we think of as nice are just easy to get along with simply because they are doing exactly what is expected of them and aren't putting up a fight for what is right. Their attitude is smooth because they are just coasting along following orders.

In a perfect world, the "rules" would all be good things and following the rules would always be doing the right thing. We don't live in that perfect world, yet. But we can create it. Until we do, I think I'll pick being good over being nice. How about you?

It only takes one to change your self image pt1

Last night I had a very long conversation with a close friend of mine. We've been living in the same house for several years and I have seen him go through quite a few changes in his way of being. He has made a lot of progress towards improving his life, but most of it has come when he has been pushed to do it by others who are concerned for his well being. Not much has come from any personal motivation that he has had.

When I asked him why this was he said that he has very low motivation due to low self esteem.And that lead to further probing questions about why he had low self esteem. I asked him how long he had been dealing with this issue and the answer was a little surprising for him I think. His general belief structure up until this point had been that his life pretty much started falling apart around ten years ago.

Once he really started thinking about it he realized the self esteem issue started several years before that. See, the image that many people have of my friend is that he is a white trailer trash redneck from Texas. They think he is functionally illiterate and too stupid to ever amount to much.

And while he is white, and he is a redneck the other parts are just ridiculous. Though, when he first came to live with us it was the impression that pretty much everyone got. He was stubborn and argumentative and didn't want to be told anything by anyone. At one point, it seemed like I was the only one holding out any hope of there being something different underneath. I saw what was on the surface, but I've learned that it isn't just beauty that is skin deep.

Almost everyone has a facade that they show the world. It is made up of all the things that they want to be true, all the things that they are afraid are true and all the things that other people have told them are true about themselves. But it's all bullshit. None of it is real.

When we are open and confident and honest with ourselves we know it isn't real and we can function sanely. It's when we start to buy into the facade that we start to implode. And that's what happened to my poor friend.

Circumstance compounded circumstance to create "absolute proof" that a certain lie about my friend was true. And believing that lie was destroying my friend from the inside out. What am I talking about? How about I explain the circumstance and how he got to where he was and you can see for yourself.

At some point while he was in grade school he did badly on some test. Maybe it was early in the morning and he was tired. Maybe it was because he just didn't know the material. Or maybe he just made a lot of careless mistakes.  Why it happened doesn't make a lick of difference. What other people made up about it is what ended up causing a problem. See someone said something to the effect of only a stupid person could do that poorly on such an easy test. Maybe it was a parent, maybe a teacher, or maybe one of his fellow students. He does not remember. And again who specifically started the snow ball rolling down hill doesn't matter.

The bottom line is that before this he was a normal everyday kid. He loved life and had no damaging beliefs about himself.  However, from this point on things started spiraling out of control. He may have ignored the one person calling him stupid if it had stopped there. But other people started doing it, other kids that did well on the test, or at least better than him. Then it comes time for him to take some other test and he does poorly on that one too. More people make fun of him for it and he starts to feel bad about himself. Maybe he is stupid. A lot of people are starting to say it about him.

He doesn't want it to be true. He is afraid it's true. So he starts looking for evidence to support the theory that he is stupid because he has to know. And lo and behold he finds it everywhere. Plenty of other kids did fine on both tests that he did poorly on and many of them make fun of him for it. His parents start to wonder if he is stupid. More tests come along and because he is starting to buy into the theory that he is stupid, he does poorly on them as well, reinforcing the belief that he is too dumb to learn, further perpetuating the cycle each time adding more and more evidence that what he fears to be true is true.