None of us are completely immune from circumstances where our emotions get the better of us. We all have hot buttons, and we all have lies we tell ourselves just so we can make it through a particularly bad day.
So long as we know they're lies, indulging in them is nothing more than pure human nature.
The problem comes when we lie to ourselves and justify ourselves on such a habitual basis that we wake up one morning and have no idea who's sleeping in our bed--and we're alone!
Objectivity has the dual benefit of not only allowing us to see what's really there, in truth, and also not let judgment crash down around our ears when we see it. It's kind of like a vaccine--cause and cure in one handy dandy little shot!
Objectivity disallows judgement, and guilt, and feelings of poor self-esteem. If you practice it, you can look at the worst parts of yourself and say, Yup--there it is. And it feels good to know that you can take that good, long look and not let it turn your head so upside down that you can't do anything about it.
But the work is yours--and a huge and holy work it is, too. You don't get help from the ouside--why would you want it?
Why would you put more faith in a chorus of liars than you would in the honesty of your own heart?
Oh, and lots of people get all tweaked at the words "lie" and "liar", but that's a habit I got into when I was dealing with the Gurdjieff group, because a euphemism is also a lie. A word that softens the blow does you no good, because it doesn't assist you in becoming objective surrounding the emotional impact of the word "lie". But if you practice, and you see where you self-justify and where you lie and where you make excuses, you begin to see it without judgment--it's just something that is, and you can fix it if you don't let yourself angst about it.
I like it when people pet me, to be sure--but I usually take it with a grain of salt, knowing that love and hate are equally blind, and to be defined from the outside is no true definition at all.
So long as we know they're lies, indulging in them is nothing more than pure human nature.
The problem comes when we lie to ourselves and justify ourselves on such a habitual basis that we wake up one morning and have no idea who's sleeping in our bed--and we're alone!
Objectivity has the dual benefit of not only allowing us to see what's really there, in truth, and also not let judgment crash down around our ears when we see it. It's kind of like a vaccine--cause and cure in one handy dandy little shot!
Objectivity disallows judgement, and guilt, and feelings of poor self-esteem. If you practice it, you can look at the worst parts of yourself and say, Yup--there it is. And it feels good to know that you can take that good, long look and not let it turn your head so upside down that you can't do anything about it.
But the work is yours--and a huge and holy work it is, too. You don't get help from the ouside--why would you want it?
Why would you put more faith in a chorus of liars than you would in the honesty of your own heart?
Oh, and lots of people get all tweaked at the words "lie" and "liar", but that's a habit I got into when I was dealing with the Gurdjieff group, because a euphemism is also a lie. A word that softens the blow does you no good, because it doesn't assist you in becoming objective surrounding the emotional impact of the word "lie". But if you practice, and you see where you self-justify and where you lie and where you make excuses, you begin to see it without judgment--it's just something that is, and you can fix it if you don't let yourself angst about it.
I like it when people pet me, to be sure--but I usually take it with a grain of salt, knowing that love and hate are equally blind, and to be defined from the outside is no true definition at all.
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