Release Date: Friday, April 13, 2007

You are innately good, no contingencies

You try to smile as you look around the room. You can't. You manage to hold back the tears. Why did he have to dump you before the party? And why are you the only one by yourself?

From the time we learn the word "no," we begin to feed the notion that something is wrong … with us.

You are weary of trying so hard and coming up short. You wish there were a gracious way to give up — or at least to go home and cry, and call in sick tomorrow. You press on.

We are quickly taught that in order to be good enough we must meet certain criteria — manners, grades, athleticism, looks, title, income, etc. We are inevitably pushed to meet the contingency, to do what we must to make ourselves good enough.

When we get rejected (by a lover, an employer, a bank) we often read it as confirmation, whether we admit or not, that we don't quite measure up. We personalize somebody else's preferences or standards, and analyze how we could have or should have done better.

We may get discouraged or determined or both. Either way, we can't quite get enough — whether it is money, food, drugs, sex, accomplishment, education or religious insurance — to feel good enough.

When we don't reach the bar, we often blame somebody else for what seems to be lacking in us. When we do reach the bar, we raise it, because reaching it doesn't make everything (read: us) feel OK.

Must we do something to make ourselves good enough? Can we? What if the only thing standing between you and true happiness is a lie?

What if … you are not somehow flawed or doomed? What if … you are innately good enough, with no contingencies?

I know, I know. … He's not the first to dump you. And, yes, if you are innately good, so is he! Even harder to believe, so is the criminal in today's headlines.

"Evil" exists, not as our nature, but as an alternative, because goodness when dictated is no longer goodness. When we align our choices with our conscience, which is innate, we choose "good." We also realize self-verification, or self-esteem. If we were innately "bad," we would get self-verification by choosing "bad." The problem is that we confuse conscience with indoctrination.

When you go to the party (or church) because you are worried about what others think, you are not listening to your conscience; you are listening to your indoctrinated ego. When somebody ill-suited for you moves on, your depression is not based on what you lost, or what you should have done to hang on to him. It is based on what you never truly had … self-esteem.

Your worth has no contingencies! You don't have to be smart enough or pretty enough or nice enough to meet his (or her) approval in order to have self-esteem.

But your ongoing struggle with ego doesn't make you bad. It makes you human.

When you realize that humans are innately good, you invalidate the fear that you are somehow not good enough — from whence all other fears flow! And you stop compromising your values in order to be acceptable.

You no longer worry about whether or not she will like you, or he will understand you, or the boss will appreciate you. You are not driven by what is outside yourself, but by what is within.

And when your self-worth is no longer threatened by what others are thinking, you may just be very excited about attending the party alone and meeting somebody (every human there) who is as wonderful as you are!

You won't be making excuses for being alone, and you won't be throwing out insults or blame. You will be spreading the joy of self-verification.