Over the now thirty-eight years of my life, I somehow developed a (largely unconscious) belief that I need to justify my existence, or that, in essence, I need to atone for having been born. I think it doesn't take a genius to understand how this could have happened since, after all, the majority of the oldest traditions of the world teach in one way or another that to be human is to be flawed or inherently sinful. But recently I am moving away from the belief that I am found wanting and need to atone in some way, and I am finally having this talk with myself; that is, I don't have to prove I am worthy or justify my existence.
To be clear, I was never told these things explicitly, but it seems I picked them up over the years in subtle ways. For example, I was never a very good student; in fact, I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, and only after being told that I would need my diploma to join the navy. Seeing as my grades growing up were less-than impressive, I tended to attract the sort of attention one would expect from that. I remember spending extra time in elementary school learning how to read, I went to a math tutor during middle school, and in high school I ended up having to go in to my math teacher's class before school started to study. All that, and my grades were still mostly C's over the years. Inevitably, with year after year of poor performance in school, and the unfavorable reactions from those guiding me, I got the feeling that I wasn't good enough. And with that feeling came the self-doubt, the shame, and the belief that I wasn't proving worthy.
I wasn't proving worthy. "We have to prove ourselves worthy?" Apparently. Because we were constantly being graded or judged growing up. Now, I won't go too far into this particular topic here, but I should note that judgement is vital for life and survival. However, there comes a point when judgement is excessive, harmful, or simply wrong.
So what does one do? Well, when you're young, if you're fortunate enough to have people in your life who are wise enough to understand what is really going on, and who are able to help you along, then I think you may end up better prepared for adult life than most. Otherwise, you do what you can to survive your early years. I get to this point and can't help but figure that it ends here for the majority of people; a person simply learns to live with the way they were conditioned and doesn't consider that, perhaps, their inner life could be healthier, even calmer. I am no exception here, either. Though I've spent years in search for solutions to life, it's only recently that I've actually begun to take genuinely serious, concerted action for my own good (but that's a story for another time).
The factors in play which contribute to our daily anxieties are obviously manifold, and I am certainly not going to attempt to touch on them all in this little blog. But the one I am trying to get at here is related to, like I said above, the idea that we have been found wanting, that we need to prove ourselves, and, I'll add, that the ideal is always on the horizon. As I think through all this I find that it's a pretty hairy problem, and there is a balance to be struck between contending with adversity and knowing when it's healthy to give yourself some grace. There is one thing, however, I think I can say with some confidence about the state we often find ourselves in:
It's not your fault, but it's your responsibility.