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Am I turning into a bad person?

HomeForumsEmotional MasteryAm I turning into a bad person?

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  • #116270
    dreaming715
    Participant

    I’m almost 28-years-old. I used to pride myself on being kind to others, being 100% emotionally and physically faithful in relationships, and acting in accordance to the morals I was taught (don’t lie, etc…).

    Where did this get me? No where. As I’ve gotten older my quality of life has taken a nose-dive. I’m estranged from my drug-addicted mom. My ex-fiancé unexpectedly left me while we were planning our wedding. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness. I have to re-home my dog due to all of this and not being able to financially care for him alone. And then I admittedly became jaded from online dating (where I thought people went to find love or companionship… but apparently many prefer “casual relationships” and by that I mean sleeping with multiple people at the same time and stringing me along as if they liked me without the intention of actually committing to me). But I know better now and I know not to tolerate that.

    But here’s the thing. I feel like I don’t care anymore. I used to believe in karma. I no longer believe in that because it’s not adding up. My friend who cheated on her ex-husband more than once is now happily re-married and living in a state that she loves and is incredibly successful in her career. I know guys who lied straight to my face, but are financially prosperous, have the means to travel to pretty exotic locations, and they come from big, loving families.

    After spending most of my life trying to be a good person and having several years of bad fortune, my attitude has shifted. I don’t feel there’s as much of a point to relationships because the abundance of men I’ve met are only interested in a physical relationship on their terms, aren’t interested in committing, they lie or keep things from me, etc… So I’ve noticed myself being involved with someone and intentionally flirting with others…because it doesn’t seem to matter. They just leave anyway. I also come from a divorced home and my mom (the one who doesn’t act like I exist) is on her third marriage.

    I’ve also said hurtful things to a friend recently when she upset me. Things I wouldn’t have imagined saying to her before. I brought up things that I knew would hurt her. I’m not proud of what I said, yet I said it. I think I justify it because I don’t feel she has been as supportive of a friend to me lately.

    I’ve become sad and pessimistic. I feel like I’m the worst version of myself right now. But when I try to practice a positive, “good” way of living… I get bad results anyway. So what’s the point?

    #116308
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dreaming715:

    Interactions with others, especially ongoing interactions, aka relationships should be a Win-Win deal. Your self interest, your well being should always be your concern and intent. I feel very strongly about this principle. Yes, the other person must not be abused, need not Lose, but your main concern is to make it a Win for you. This is what is true in nature: every living thing on the face of the Earth has one main concern (genetically, instinctively and in more evolved species, emotionally)- promote self interest, first and foremost.

    As humans, we are good people if we see to it that it is a Win for the other person as well as a Win for ourselves. We are not good people when we sacrifice our well being (Lose, for us) so that it is a Win for the other person.

    So if you try to “be good” as in regardless of context, be good to people who are hurting you, that is a misguided strategy, unnatural, ineffective, self destructive.

    anita

    #116332
    Peter
    Participant

    The other day I overheard someone tell another person who had suffered a theft that karma would catch up with the thief and punish them. Karma a kind of universal police force of justice punishing the wrong doer. I joked if the person wishing bad karma on the thief as a form of justice wasn’t creating bad karma for themselves.

    The joke begged the question:

    Was Karma a force for justice, a way of balancing the score, a construct that allowed us to feel ok with the confrontation of the problem of why bad things happen to good people?

    Was the idea of karma a reward punishment theology where as long as I did everything right and obeyed all the rules I would be rewarded and not punished?

    I don’t think Karma is about justice or reward and punishment. My understanding of observation about the concept of karma is more like the filters through which we view our experiences. (Or that limit our experiences)

    I believe we become the stories we tell ourselves and our karma greatly influence the stories we are able to tell and so the experiences we have.

    My own experiences has been that it is very difficult to change a story we tell ourselves about who we are. Past lives, Nature and nurture, many of the filters through which we view life through were defined and influenced before we were born, or reborn, and more often than not remain unconscious.

    I wonder could the theology for reward and punishment be an example of a karmic filter that needs to be overcome.

    What if the “reward” of good karma wasn’t that only good things happen to us but that we become capable of seeing through the illusion of “the good” and “the bad”, reward and punishment, (the problem of opposites?) and doing so able to live life as it is, realizing that as it is, is good, and good, LOVE.

    In your post you write about your expectation that being a good person meant that others would not disappoint you, in essence rewarding you for being a good person. (Disappointment becoming a filter shaping your experience)

    I get it, I’ve been there, and it sucks.

    I wonder if it’s possible to create some space and re-evaluate the reward and punishment thinking and how that filter has colored your experiences.

    How would your expectations of reward and punishment been experienced by those you are in relationship with? Did they experience your love or your expectations?

    What if the choices you make to be “good” were made not for any expectation of reward but because they were right (as best as you know them to be) in and of themselves? Decisions made because they came from your authentic sense of self and as such reason enough?
    A way of loving yourself that allows for mistakes and wrong turns with the intention that when you learn better you do better. Image living life without such self-created tensions or anxieties of reward and punishment?

    It is in my opinion that it is our karma, our filters, that make it difficult to authentically love ourselves and loving ourselves, love others, setting in motion the limits of our experiences.

    There is a hermetic saying that as above so below, as below so above. We are influenced but also influence – the reality being that we are influenced (by our karma/filters/nurture/nature/others) far more easily then we influence.

    It is my belief or maybe it is a hope, that learning to authentically love ourselves creates the space to reshape our karmic story and so create the relationships that we yearn for. A reward not for following the rules and doing everything right but because it is, life is, and we are.

    #116499
    slider
    Participant

    thank you dreaming715 for your question and thank you anita for your reply… relates to my case completely.

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