So I’ve talked about being able to say things are not OK, and that it’s OK to not be OK, it’s OK to say things are not good enough, and that this kind of a hard statement can help to shake us into action.
Because, of course, simply telling ourselves everything’s OK over and over, unless we really feel that this is true, that can sort of calm us down in the moment to say OK, it’s not so bad, it could be worse, calming us down from the feeling of dissatisfaction in the moment, but then ultimately not fuelling change, not leading us to do anything to improve our situation.
So I think there’s an important distinction to be made, and this is something that helped me, to be able to use this tool.
Because when you say things are not OK, or they are OK, there’s two different ways to look at it, two different domains.
There is one domain in which we are always OK.
I believe that we each have an inherent value.
As beings, as creatures with consciousness, humans, living beings, we are wonderful things.
I mean, beyond our understanding, the wonder of what it means to have a human life.
And it’s really like a magical thing.
We are magical creatures of incredible power, and we have this inherent value in us as people.
And I believe- I can’t find a way to absolutely come to this through reason and logic.
There may be a way to it, but I really take it as something that I simply believe in.
I simply have faith.
And maybe it’s connected to my belief that life is amazing.
Just the chance to have this, the chance to have something rather than nothing, the chance to have consciousness and to have experience: these things are amazing.
And I simply feel that way.
Maybe I can’t explain logically why it’s amazing to be alive versus not, but if there was nothing, then there’d be no logic to talk about, there’d be nothing to say.
So just the fact that having a chance to experience life, and to have this consciousness and this existence, that is amazing.
And we, as creatures that can have this experience, and have this consciousness, I believe that that itself is something that is amazing, in and of itself.
Simply by being here and by existing, we are these incredible beings, and we have value, no matter what.
And in this domain, in this sense, this is where I believe that we are all OK.
We are all good.
No matter what the situation in our life is, no matter what else is going on, no matter anything that you could say is wrong with somebody, even the worst people in the world, anybody you can imagine: simply by being human, by having this life, we have a value that cannot be taken away.
Sometimes using the word dignity is good.
There’s a certain dignity that comes with being this way.
Maybe it’s like a spiritual value.
And I’m sure there’s a lot more to say about this.
I take it as simply something that I hold to be true.
It seems to be true based on my experience, but I wonder whether there are more things to say about it that can help to make it more clear, and maybe people that don’t believe they have any value at all, maybe something that could help them to believe that, no, I mean, your life may be messed up, maybe not, maybe some serious issues, but, no matter how bad it is, if you’re still alive to think about it, then you have this incredible value.
So when when somebody says, you know, “You’re not OK”, “You’re bad”, “There’s something wrong with you”, it’s important, I believe, to not take away from that confidence that we have that inherent value, no matter how bad your life is.
So that’s where I think it’s right to say no, it’s OK.
And yes, you can change your perspective, rather than change your life, in that sense.
You don’t have to do anything in your life to prove that you have inherent value.
You have it by nature of being alive.
And you don’t need to do anything to defend that, to show it.
It’s simply automatically there.
And so that’s the case where, yes, I believe you can absolutely say, no matter what, that you are OK, and you are good.
You are fundamentally good.
So that’s that domain, really like a spiritual domain, a sense of your fundamental value as a being.
But then there’s the other domain that’s often confused with that, is how are you living your life? What are you doing? What are your actions? What are your daily actions? Your daily thoughts, your daily words, your daily deeds? What are you doing with your life, your incredible life that you have? Incredible in the sense of you have this incredible power to live, the power to be alive.
What are you doing with it? Now, it’s in this domain that I see there is not the same sense of automatically being good and automatically being right. […]