Under Pressure
Permission Changes
Everything
John D. Martin
"Forward" By Roberta Natale
Copyright 2012 by John D. Martin
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means-graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems-without the prior written permission of the publisher, or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.
ISBN 978-0-9866196-3-2
Contents
"Forward"
Preface
This
I Claim
Introduction
Part
One: The Red Letters
Help
Our
Stuff
The
Words
Us
and Them
Be
Careful
Button
Your Collar
You’re
Kidding Me!
We
Kill Our Kids
Get
Off Me
Part
Two: Permission
Now
What?
Something
Completely New
Self
Care
The
Big P
How
It Feels
When
I Was a Child
Yesterday
Relationships
Listen
The
List
Tomorrow
For
Constance
and Zechariah
who
never stop providing for me
and
For my dear friends, Linda who has seen me through this never wavering always with me and Roberta whose courage is inspirational and future so full of possibilities.
Yesterday brings us
to where we are, it does not have to take us to where we are going.
Live like everyone is watching all the time.
The most important page of all
Very special thanks to new friends and old.
For you Cheryl Kossen, without your editing patience and ability I would have looked foolish.
For you Victor Kozak, without your skill and kindness this would still be pages on the floor.
For you Dave Cannon, who makes sure I think, dot every i and cross every t.
For you Adnan Abosh, who skillfully brought us to the world.
For you Heidi Winter, your experience and enthusiasm help me remember why.
For you Barbara Durette who has helped me make so much come to life.
"Forward"
I have known John Martin for several years. When he was working on Under Pressure...Permission Changes Everything, he gave me a portion of it to read. That particular section of the book contained a character that was based on me. Of course I was flattered and intrigued to read it, however, after reading I felt angry, misunderstood and disappointed. When John asked me what I thought, I told him that "he didn’t know me at all; I wasn’t the person he made me out to be.” He encouraged me to read the entire book, but for months I refused.
What I didn’t know, was in that moment, my life was changed forever. As much as I tried to shrug off the experience as though it didn’t matter, I found myself thinking about the book and my feelings around it every day. I began paying attention to my reactions in life’s daily challenges so that I would not fulfill the prophecy of this “character.” I convinced myself that I was not her and in doing that I was catapulted into self awareness. When John gave me the entire book to read, it took me a long time to convince myself to pick it up. When I finally did I became unhinged.
Under Pressure asks, “Do I have the courage and the confidence to resist the pressures around me and pursue the things that I feel are important?” The answer to that has always been very clear to me, I have responsibilities in life. I owe it to everyone around me to fulfill those roles to the best of my ability, even if it consumes me. It’s what I “should” be doing because it’s the “right” thing. Considering the possibilities outside of my obligations was unimaginable.
Under Pressure…Permission Changes Everything will wake you up and teach you how to stop walking through life blindly. Through real life examples you will learn how to identify what is holding you back so that you can reach your true potential.
The purpose of Under Pressure is to provoke thought, reconsider the status quo and endeavor to find a new approach.
The message in this book will be delivered to those who are listening. The message may come to you as a revelation or a process. Either way it will strip you down and compel you to consider the possibilities and challenge you to do things differently. Under Pressure may take you on a bumpy ride, but the destination can be life changing. My life is shifting into a higher consciousness and Under Pressure has been my ticket for this journey.
Roberta Natale
Preface
The work before you has been constructed in two parts. The first part is a kind of matter of fact, simple look at some of the reasons that contribute to who we are and why we act and re-act the way we do.
In an effort to make it all real and easy to relate to Under Pressure...Permission Changes Everything, uses dozens of anecdotes, real stories from real people that I have encountered over my life time. Listen and see if they don't make you smile and wince. They are all, you and I.
Part one is called The Red Letters or to be more precise six words that have too often come to define and determine us, six words that can and often have enormous control and influence over our lives and our sense of being.
The Red Letters show how we have been "turned on", controlled and dictated to by the most powerful institutions and organizations in our society. They have cleverly used the words should and shouldn't, right and wrong and good and bad to manipulate us and make sure that desired ends are met. They have done that so skillfully, that we have made these words and their power our own.
We follow prescriptions, often having no idea why, and we are led to places that do not fulfill us. These are places that speak of mediocrity, conformity, fitting in and being accepted. The consequences of not fitting in are simply too great to ignore.
I guess it would be safe to say that the first half of the book is a kind of tool to gain reference and perspective. It's meant to be a bit like finding a map and saying "so that's where I am" and then spending some time with that map and saying "so that's how I got here".
So many people ask "why". The Red Letters offer some possible answers.
The second half of the book (where all the power and excitement lie) Permission, is somewhat unusual. Continuing the map analogy, it says "ok, now that I know where I am and how I got here, how do I get out of here?" More importantly, "how do I get myself to a place that might be more authentic, more acceptable to me, more honest and more hopeful?"
My life experience has taught me that permission is a wonderful tool and gift. Once we understand its power and ability relative to our lives, others and the world at large, there is no telling how many new, currently unimaginable possibilities might be easily within our grasp.
The second half of the book builds on "the facts" if you will, of the first half. Now we are no longer information gathering. Now we are going to try something new, something fresh and something potentially life changing.
Under Pressure...Permission Changes Everything, is a very simple piece of work and certainly a "true story."
Come and see how permission works, where it can take us and what a wonderful place that can be. Let me show you how to undo the power of The Red Letters and how, maybe for the first time, your entire perspective and your whole life might finally be yours, full of new, happy and self fulfilled. Come and see possibilities never before imagined and how to do so many things completely new.
j m
This I Claim
All of the people that you will read about in the coming pages are very real. I have changed their names and sometimes their gender because I do not want to embarrass anyone.
I either know the people that I use as examples in my life today, or I have dug into my memory and accessed those and their stories from the past.
The people are real, the stories are real and the message that you are about to read is very real.
When I started to write I had only two requirements. I wanted what I wrote to make sense and to mean something.
I do so hope that it makes sense and means something to you.
j m
Introduction
At 5am on a very cool late March day, long before daylight, the solitary figure of a small thin woman with brilliant red hair sat on my front step.
Passing by inside, I staggered and drew back. I could see through the glass door a person where no person was expected to be.
As my eyes drew focus, my head slowly followed, I knew this shape. I took a deep breath, I knew the story.
No words had been spoken. She did not know I was there, that she was not alone. Yet already somehow we were united, together.
We sat, held hands, came close, moved away, shivered and felt.
In time she spoke.
“I need something, but I have no idea what. My soul aches, feels so heavy. It’s hard to breathe. I am a good girl lost.”
Her search, her spot, those words and that encounter helped to bring what follows.
Part One
The Red Letters
Help
Robert drives the same road each day. He passes the same shops and parks and likely most of the same people, and he wonders how and why. At least he wonders why on a good day, a day of reminiscence and maybe melancholy. Most days though he is simply angry at his life, his lot and his pit.
He seeks me out on occasion simply to talk or I guess to spew.
“How did I get here, how come I am so fed up, so angry, what happened to my life?
I had dreams and plans and then, Jesus, I’m just so angry I can barely function.
I can’t stand my job, I’m behind on my financial commitments and my marriage is in shambles.
I mean it’s not a total mess, but most of the time we only cope, you know, two people trying to survive, trying to make sense, hoping to do better. Two people who wonder, at least to ourselves, why are we here, what’s in the future and at times why we bothered to marry at all.
I don’t say it, she doesn’t say it but I know we both think these things, we both get lost and wonder why and how to do it better, or even if better is possible.
In fact, most of my life has no resemblance to what I thought it would be. My children drive me crazy and at times I don’t even want to be a parent. I feel horrible, even feeling this is terrible for me, saying it is beyond comprehension.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids but it’s somehow more than I imagined it would be.
I mean, I wonder, is this what I signed up for? Is it going to get better and can we find a different way?
Tell me that thing I like to hear. Tell me that thing that makes it better, that actually helps for a few minutes, that thing that makes it stop and gives me hope.
Tell me that thing that makes me smile and laugh. That thing that you say, that I believe when it comes out of your mouth, that thing that you seem to actually believe. Tell me!”
Robert is a friend of mine, and he, like others that I know and have known, share a similar problem. They are in a place that makes little sense, a place unplanned and unknown. A place that came together by circumstance or worse, a place made by others.
“Fret not my friend so much of what you worry about, so much that drives you to despair is fixable.
You have the ability and the opportunity to do things differently, to change course, to give that stuff up and to make huge and significant changes.
Robert my friend, you have permission to do things differently.”
Each time it’s the same. He looks at me in disbelief, peaceful, mouth-open disbelief, and, for an instant feels the power of possibilities and feels the hope of something new and different.
“I love the way that sounds, and sometimes I can keep the hope of something new and different for a day or two.
But you know how it goes. Life gets in the way and in an hour or a day I’m back, back in my stuff and those words seem ridiculous, untouchable and almost a mockery to my life.
Maybe if you would write them down, put them on paper, maybe then I could reach for them when things seem out of control, when I am lost or frightened or completely hopeless.
Just write them down so that I can remember and while you’re at it, write down that other stuff. You know, all the stories and the hope and the how to and the permission and how it all seems to work and how while I sit here in this artificial, “it’s not really my life” place, it all makes perfect sense.
Write it all down, damn it, so that I can hold it and hear it and feel it.”
Ashna didn’t believe it when she heard it. She was utterly incredulous, beside herself, yet she never said a word.
For ten minutes we sat together in a small group, nothing more than lunch-time chatter. There was talk about something and nothing. Today, Ashna dominated; she needed sympathy, empathy, maybe just an ear. Ashna, told us about her evening, a night gone wrong.
“It’s the same thing every time we get together.
I have these two friends, you know, guy friends. We’ve known each other since high school and we get together every couple of weeks, see a movie, have dinner, drinks, whatever.
Every time it’s the same thing. They have too much to drink. They act like fools, say stupid things, sometimes mean and hurtful things, usually inappropriate sexual things and it bothers me. They don’t respect me and my feelings. They don’t care about how I feel and they couldn’t care less about what it’s like for me to be with a couple of fools.
And every time it’s the same thing the next day. One of them or sometimes even both will call.” “Sorry Ashna. I guess we had too much to drink. I guess we said some things that might have hurt you. Sorry Ashna. You know it’s the booze. We’ll do better next time.”
“I guess I can forgive them. I mean, they are my friends. We’ve known each other for fifteen years, maybe more.
That’s what friends do isn’t it, support each other and understand?”
And the room nods and listens and respects Ashna’s pain, and the room gets it.
Of course, Ashna needs to forgive and be patient. Of course, Ashna ought to understand. That’s what friends do, isn’t it? That’s what the room thinks. She is justified and cared for. She is vindicated and supported. The room understands her pain and her predicament.
Is this all Ashna can hope for, a group of work buddies, lunch time “friends” nodding and excusing Ashna’s inability and her friends poor behavior?
“You don’t have to keep the same friends.
There is no rule that says you have to keep the same friends forever. Why bother with them and why not be without them?
Are you compelled to be here? Is there something that says a friend once is a friend forever?
Loose them, get some new friends. Find someone who respects you, cares for you and treats you decently.
And if that’s not possible then be by yourself. It’s got to be better than this.
Do it differently. Of course, you can forgive and be understanding, but enough is enough. You can still forgive or even understand these people without having to be abused by them, week after week and year after year.”
Ashna looks at me with disbelief, utter disbelief. Such a thing is spoken in a foreign language. Such a thing has never occurred to her. She is not only caught off guard but she is absolutely shocked at the notion. How is such a thing possible? How can steps like this be taken? She simply stares blankly.
“This is my life”, her face says. This is what I have, my lot. How on earth can such action and freedom be possible?
“Ashna, pretty much anything is possible. Certainly your life and its betterment, your happiness and choices that bring happiness closer, are very possible.
Ashna, imagine the freedom of not participating in the same mess, the same ugly mess over and over again.”
She simply stares blankly, hoping to decipher this new language. The silence is clear, lunch is over.
Our Stuff
We get our stuff, our sense of what we ought to be and ought to do from a number of places.
We get wound up and turned on, motivated and directed from voices within that inevitably come from voices without.
This is how we become who and what we are and this is what establishes our frame, our sense of reality and most importantly the code or codes that we live by.
For the sake of discussion let’s call this our environment or our socialization. Some would argue that this stuff is innate, intrinsic and somehow part of our soul. I’m not sure. I am sure that pretty much anything is open for discussion. If, however, our programming is imprinted on our soul or our consciousness from birth, then that speaks sadly about the way so many of us act. Furthermore, it makes a huge comment on the things that so many of us can somehow justify as acceptable or even required behavior.
There was a time that I believed that surely we could find a common thread, a common group of principles or beliefs that could keep us together, keep us agreeing on at least the really important things, the basics or fundamentals of being human on the same planet.
You know, don’t kill, don’t cause others harm. Don’t be malicious. Don’t consider yourself first, or at least not first all of the time. Give a damn about others. Consider other people’s needs and wants. Be decent, be kind, be considerate; respect other people. The list goes on, the bottom line, thank you Rodney King… “Can’t we all just get along?”
I believed that we all somehow saw things pretty much the same when it came to the really critical issues of humanity. I needed to believe that as long as a common system of basic human decency and understanding was possible, then I was very much able to have a real sense of hope for human kind.
I needed to maintain the fantasy that when push came to shove the very vast majority of people, regardless of culture or family roots or religious orientation, would dig down deep and pull the best of themselves out of their very being. They would hear that voice that unites all people and choose to do and be the decent thing, the caring thing, the “I really do give a damn” thing. And that somehow, that thing, would, at its very core be similar enough for everyone, or at least everyone who wasn’t clinically disturbed or mad, so similar that caring, decent behavior would somehow rise up and prevail.
Viktor once told me of being at the scene of a terrible accident on the highway.
“It was a total mess. There were at least fifteen cars involved and two huge trucks. Many people were hurt. We learned later that three people died right there on the road.
It was in the middle of a blinding snowstorm. We were going the other way and we were somehow able to see it all happening. Cars and trucks just kept running into each other.
The amazing thing was that people were running into the mess, into the wreckage to try and help those involved.
It was incredible, even though you couldn’t see properly, even though there was clearly the sense that the accident was not over and danger was imminent, people left the safety of their cars on the other side of the road or behind the mess and ran, seemingly with no thought, into the fire, the screaming, smashing metal and glass.
I remember feeling so proud to be a part of that. I remember feeling proud to be a person.
I don’t think anyone was saving or trying to save or help a friend or a family member but people responded bravely and with determination. They were going to help no matter what the cost. It was beautiful.”
Viktor’s experience is what I needed to believe people were made of in all critical situations. When the chips are down, when our backs are to the wall, decency and a concern for others will somehow prevail.
Sadly, my life experience and the experience that I have learned about, shows me absolutely that that wish is simply that, a hope.
I wanted to believe that somehow, at least when it came to the really important things, the important “stuff” of life, there would be a “common agreement” that would under all circumstances keep us all nodding our heads. I needed to buy into the dream that we all “got it”, that when push came to shove the very vast majority of people would somehow be able to come together on the basics of life, recognize a thread that unites, at least on the very most essential concerns of being human.
I am no longer sure. So much seems fluid, relative and uncertain. The truths that one person or one group hold are often foreign or even ridiculous to others. Some of these basics are chalked up to social and cultural differences. In this country we eat with utensils, in that with our hands. In this place we speak face to face, here we do not make eye contact. In that land we marry our relatives, in this we wouldn’t dare, couldn’t. It would land us “in ridicule” or maybe even in jail. I shake hands, you bow. She hugs and kisses on the cheek, he stands at attention. The list of we do it this way and you do it that way is endless and often humorous, however, sometimes it’s not humorous at all.
Daryl is an African man that I knew years ago. He once told me a most astounding thing.
“In the land that I come from, many people are dying from AIDS. It is widely taught, at least on the streets and in the community that the best and only way to cure oneself from this horrible disease is to find a virgin and have sex with her.
Many people in my country believe that the “cleanliness” of the virgin will cure the illness.
Of course, the only way to really guarantee that you have found yourself a true virgin is to find a very young child and be sexual with her.
Because of this belief and the need that this belief has created, many parents who are in need of food for themselves or their families are selling their very young, female children to those infected with AIDS. This accomplishes two things. The starving family has a little money to survive another day and the child sold as a “cure” is now likely infected as well.”
See what I mean?
Daryl’s story is certainly extreme and utterly pathetic, but it is a shocking example of how what can be tolerated, even accepted in one place, one culture, one group is beyond belief and absolutely intolerable to another.
These extreme examples are much more common than you might first think. The truth is, there are many, many examples of human behavior that are considered acceptable or even mainline by one group that are utterly repugnant to others.
Are they wrong in this African place, are we right here? Maybe, but not all cases are so clearly obvious and chances are if asked, those in Daryl’s land might not have a big problem with “sacrificing” virgins.
On September the 11th 2001, for me one of the most shocking things that I witnessed was not the obvious. Oh, I was beside myself at the horrible and blatant acts of horror perpetrated on civilians. The planes, the explosions, the bodies, the tumbling buildings were all beyond my ability to comprehend. None of these images, though, are what is most left with me today, several years later.
The world really is a global village now and as a result we have the ability almost instantly, to not only witness events live or capture events minutes after the fact, but we can gauge reaction instantly as well.
I remember standing in front of my television, mouth agape, as I watched some in other countries celebrate, what I had seen only minutes earlier as barbarism, murder on a grand scale and acts of hatred beyond human comprehension.
While I was collecting myself and literally pinching my flesh to see if my senses were correct, others celebrated in the streets in huge numbers cheering the death and destruction of others.
A short time later while some parts of the world were cursing and trying to capture a man called Osama, in other parts of the world he was honored and his name given to a record number of males, newly born.
Point made, your reality may be a very long way from mine or from the next person's.
The things one person considers acceptable may be worlds apart from that which is acceptable to others. The least common thing about our common point of view may in fact be its commonality.
The Words
All this got me thinking. There are in my life experience and my culture six words that ought to be re-examined and carefully considered. Six words that are very powerful and potentially harmful. Six words that can manipulate and control, push and pull and have so many of us doing what others have thrust upon us rather than being responsible for who and what we are.
I call them the Red Letters.
When I hear them or read them I laugh, smile or shake my head and think these words are so powerful, so dramatic and so very controlling that when written, ought to appear in red so that everyone who comes in contact with their presence can immediately get their power and be alerted to their significance.
We all know them, chances are we all use them on a very regular basis and we all, or at least the very vast majority of us, use them as tools, knowingly or not, against others and believe it or not, against ourselves and our own very existence and happiness. These are the Red Letters. They control, harm and keep us from our own growth, development, learning, humanity and happiness. In fact, they may be at the core of so many of our daily, social and cultural problems. Certainly they speak loudly to Robert, Ashna and those in the places like Daryl comes from.
The Red Letters definitely go in pairs. They are stuck together as if somehow to be given more power. It is very difficult to have one without the other and together they cause manipulation, misery, pain and often destruction of the situation and likely the individual.
They really ought to teach a course on these ogres. In the English language and in Western society there are as far as I can tell, no more loaded words, words that carry such clout and such damaging consequences. These are words that tear and define, judge and condemn. They are words that hurt and pigeon-hole, words that ought to be behind glass, words that might require an act of emergency in order to use them. I find it difficult to separate them. They all somehow are one in the same, but for the sake of our consideration I will group them in their natural pairs. Beware of their power; beware of their weight on your very existence.
Should and shouldn’t are the first duo. This pair we pull out at a moment’s notice or worse, with no thought or notice at all. We have decided that these two S words are worth using at the drop of any hat.
You should go to church.
You should cut your hair.
You should go back to school.
You should kiss your father good
night.
You
should eat less food.
You
should paint your walls blue.
You
should buy that dress it looks good on you.
You should, you should you
should….
Of course there is the evil twin.
You shouldn’t stay out so late.
You shouldn’t see that boy any
more.
You
shouldn’t listen to that kind of music.
You shouldn’t wear black; it’s
not your color.
You
shouldn’t give so much freedom to your children.
You shouldn’t eat so much
yellow cheese.
You
shouldn’t go to that school any more.
You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t,
you shouldn’t…
The list is as endless as your imagination or your life experience. The pain that these lovely S words can cause is beyond explanation. I have no doubt that at least with those who speak English (maybe other languages too) that we have all been subject to the pain of the S words. We have all felt the humiliation of others telling us what we should or shouldn’t do, how we should or shouldn’t live, what we should or shouldn’t eat or think or believe or consider or, or , or.
Strangely enough, I would go further and say that even though most of us, or I dare say all of us have been on the difficult end of should or shouldn’t that we do not hesitate to fling the S words ourselves. We hurl them in the direction of passersby, acquaintances, friends and even family. We toss them with a kind of certainty and superiority, pretty much at anyone or any situation that we choose regardless of the consequences to those who the S words are directed at.
Apparently, we have learned nothing from our own misery. Apparently instead of “turning the other cheek” we simply take the sting of the slap and as quickly as we are hit, turn to our “neighbor” whoever that may be, and slap them in return. Why don’t we learn?
Why don’t we “get it,” pause, consider what the words feel like when they are directed at us and stop the “pass it on” insanity then and there?
Alana is a young lady who lives with her grandmother. Her grandmother is definitely from “the old country” and does not approve of many of the choices that Alana makes.
“I can’t do anything without her telling me that I should do this or I shouldn’t do that. She “should and shouldn’ts” me on my appearance, my work habits, my choice of friends, my eating habits and my studying. I am so tired of the ridicule and the judgment. It feels like I can’t do anything right.
The really strange thing is that my grandmother has made me so should and shouldn’t sensitive that I hear it everywhere. I have turned into a should and shouldn’t freak. Once my grandmother sensitized me I hear the words everywhere. My friends use them all the time, my teachers, I can’t get away from the stuff. Good God how come everybody knows what I should and shouldn’t be doing with my life better than me?”
The pain that Alana feels from her grandmother is the pain of should and shouldn’t. These words are meant, on their own, to hurt, to cause guilt, to manipulate and to somehow have the recipient feel lost, alone, judged and most importantly anxious, that somehow they have not lived up to expectations. They don’t make the grade, they have failed or disappointed. You do not approve and “they had better get it right.”
No good can come of these feelings. There can only be a wicked sense of self loathing, personal failure, a lack of self worth and most disturbing of all, an urge to join the crowd.
Should and shouldn’t almost on their own, have the God awful ability to force the individual out of us, to make us conform, feel small, out of sorts and alone.
Resist the “should and shouldn’ts” that come your way. Resist those who toss them at you and resist the pain that they bring.
If you have the patience, explain to those who “should or shouldn’t you” what they are doing, how you feel, or if possible give them a copy of these words. Don’t forget that as hurtful and corralled as these words can make you feel that you too are likely guilty of thrusting them, often without thought, in the direction of others.
Sadly, many use these words as commonly as they might say hello or good bye or report factually on something. The truth is that we “should and shouldn’t” each other all the time without much thought at all about what we are doing. We have very little insight and therefore, I suppose very little responsibility.
I ask you then to pause for a moment and feel the weight of the S words. Wait until they are used in your direction and if they have not stung you before, listen carefully. Listen with more than your ears and hear them differently. Feel their pressure, and then try to live life not judging, condemning and deciding for others. You will feel differently and those you encounter will respond in a new way to your concern for them and their freedom and their worth.
David is a man of thirty-one who had such a hard time with his family.
“My sisters are so judgmental. They are never satisfied with me, my choices or my life. For years they told me what I should and shouldn’t do. I am the youngest and if I didn’t do things the way they thought I ought to then they were relentless.
Basically, if I didn’t do things their way then I was wrong or worse, a failure.
I finally got the courage one day to confront them. I told them how their “should and shouldn’ts” made me feel and the strangest thing happened, they heard me.
It wasn’t immediate but they began to try.
There is no way that I can explain how my life has changed. The load that I carried, always trying to measure up, to do it their way, anyway but my way, was immense.
I risked and told them what pain they were causing me and how I felt manipulated and they responded. My life feels so different.
Now, if I could only get the rest of the world to ‘get it’.”
You, like David, have the opportunity every day with those who are important to you to help them so that they in turn can help you. David risked and challenged his sisters. They miraculously heard him and responded. As a result, David feels better, more human, and freer.
Life goes on, but differently now. David is beginning to take responsibility for his life and his world. David does things differently and he will make a difference. David does not have to cringe at his sisters’ needs and their inability to see him as a person. He has begun to be an individual with all its wondrous shortcomings.
Remember Robert from the beginning? Robert, is this what you meant?
We are just getting started. The Red Letters go on and may even “get better.” I will offer the next four in pairs; however, they are so closely connected that I could easily group them together. This next coupling make should and shouldn’t look tame. Hold on, the ride is about to get really interesting.
Right and wrong are once more words of distinction.
They are words that have enormous consequences and power and that can cause us to feel a variety of things. As with should and shouldn’t we carry them in our sack of tools or even weapons and we pull them out, usually in sanctimony, attacking anyone who does not meet our pleasure.
He was wrong to act like that.
She
was wrong in her decision to marry him.
They
were wrong in sending their child to that school.
Finally, they got something
right.
It’s
only right to wear a long dress to an occasion like this.
It’s not right to associate
with people like that.
That’s
not right, they aren’t right, it’s not right.
Good God!
The list once more is endless and again the judgment, condemnation and accompanying pain is huge. We seem to have decided, often all by ourselves what is right and wrong. We are judge and jury, and more, we are often even the executioner.
We sit with arms crossed, metaphorically or in reality, and decide based on our life experience or our personal code, who and what is right and wrong. We condemn and judge, we point and repel, we take our sanctimony and push it into the lives of others and they feel it, react to it, respond to it and they hurt. They are again manipulated, forced to comply, to fit in, to knuckle under. They had better or else they will certainly feel the wrath of the right and wrong.
Worse than that they hide, and they lie and they cower and they so often do whatever it is that they need to do, to get our approval, to get the “right and wrong” monkey off their back.
Fit in.
Be approved and accepted.
Above all else, keep the group, the team, the club, the “village” happy with you.
Again we don’t get it. Every time that we clobber someone or some situation with the almighty right or wrong we are doomed to be beaten ourselves by the very same fist. I remember reading somewhere that the measure that we give will be the measure that we get…hmm.
I’ll judge you, then you judge me, then I’ll judge you, then you judge me, then…
That’s wrong.
You’re wrong.
They are wrong.
Finally, someone is right to tell
them off.
I’ve
never been so right.
It’s
not the right hair cut for her.
It’s
only right to wear white between May and September.
Again the list, the suffering, the harsh judgment of the right and wrong is satisfying.
We love it, revel in it and enjoy the superiority and the ability to condemn and decide.
Come over here. Let me have a close look at you and your stuff. Let me pull it all apart and see what I can decide is right and wrong. Moreover, let me see what tune I am going to play for you to dance to.
Make no mistake, once you are in their sights or they in yours, there will be a lot of dancing, or a lot of hell to be suffered.
Hold on we will get to that.
Small towns and groups are especially good places for right and wrong to thrive and flourish. Do not get caught being an individual in a small town or as a member of a group. Do not exert your uniqueness if you are a member of a group, a club or a team.