The Trouble With Being ‘Good’

Is that we are hardly able to define or decide for ourselves, what good means. So we live a life seeking endorsement and approval because that is the steam on which we are accustomed to running.  

We are afraid of failing because we have been told that we are good for not failing. And so we have not learnt the beauty and wisdom that comes with failure. We view failure with fear and as such we are unable to share in the creations that failure births. 

We are afraid of falling because we have been congratulated, not for our ability to get back up after a fall, but for not having fallen at all. So we don’t know the strength that is built when we have to repeatedly push ourselves up off the floor. 

We don’t know how to be responsible for ourselves because we have seen ourselves as the responsibility of that person that has said “good job” and “well done” or “too bad” and “ you can’t do that”. So we wait to be told what to do and we follow instructions because that is what we are good at doing. 

And when we start to wake up, to break away, we find it difficult. We are now like babies. Learning to walk on our own. Learning to fall and get up ourselves. Learning to get burnt and not touch the fire again. Learning that this is okay, because it’s okay for us and that that is not good because we genuinely have had a bad experience with it. 

So we struggle with life because we make mistakes late and we stumble late and we fail late. And have to learn to navigate the forks in the road after being spoon fed our whole lives. Fed lies. Fed self-serving truths. Fed to be filled with doubt. 

But a late start is still a start. And a delayed journey is still a journey. In any case time is a tool, not a prison. And life is best seen as an  opportunity, not a backlog of regret. 

So we move. 

We move to learn. We move to know. We move to see who we truly are and all that we stand for. We learn in the jungle and we come out knowing food from poison. And shelter from danger.  And truth from lies. We see life as it is. And we understand. 

We understand that ‘right’ is relative and perfection is subjective. And thus we need to know for ourselves and see for ourselves and be for ourselves. Not for anyone. But for us. 

So the trouble with being good is no trouble at all,

If you have learnt that to be good enough for you, is the best type of good you can be. 

Love,

O.F.P.

18.5.19

Thumbnail Art: Jekein Lato-Unah