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ABOUT five years ago, I discovered something that had eluded and tortured me for my entire lifetime. I didn’t realize it tortured me, but it did.
I am not responsible for the rights and wrongs of the world.
Also, I’m not responsible for what my Country’s government does. Or anyone else for that matter.
Right and wrong — such an interesting idea and concept. Probably our least investigated belief system and yet is likely one of the most affecting when it comes to our lives and our well-being. Nothing else has quite the punch to the choices we make than how we perceive right and wrong.
We humans absolutely pride ourselves on “knowing right from wrong.” We teach it to our children. Someone who doesn’t know right from wrong is a psychopath.
Right and wrong seems like such a simple concept. Either/or, yes or no, black or white.
There is an unwritten agreement between civilized people as to the question of right or wrong. “Decent” people all agree on what is right and what is wrong.
If you were to say right and wrong is an absolute, you would be absolutely right. And if you said right or wrong is completely subjective you could possibly be wrong. At least according to the people who’s job it is to be right.
For centuries the gold standard for right and wrong has been our religious texts: the Ten Commandments, the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas, teachings of Buddha. Maybe it’s not such a simple task to divine right and wrong. Perhaps we’ve had it wrong all along. It seems right and wrong is relatively subjective depending on a number of things, and depending upon what our influences are.
And few things in life, particularly concepts, can claim jurisdiction over our choices more than right and wrong. Right and wrong reflects the dualistic nature of our environment, our reality. The yin/yang of physical life. Zeroes and ones, on and off, simple to teach and learn.
And incredibly easy to manipulate.
When faced with a multi-faceted issue, arguments or choices, those who stand to benefit have discovered how to employ crafty and deceiving limits (see the Overton Window) and have become exceedingly practiced at reducing a thorny issue down to a yes or no, either/or proposition which may ignore important aspects of the issue at hand. In this way, one is able to control the choices, the answers, and steer support for any issue either towards one that is favored, or against a dis-favored choice. The other way to manipulate this is to make it appear that the only choices are the two choices offered. There are always more than two choices, but in limiting them to two, those two can be molded to serve whichever person or institution is proffering them.
For instance, Calvin’s Father may offer Calvin the choice between going to bed or taking a bath. In this way, Dad makes Calvin believe these are his only choices. Calvin may choose one or the other thinking that he was calling the shots, when both choices favor Dad. And Calvin may not realize that doing neither one was also a choice, or doing something completely different like watching television.
So this goes on every day of our lives. We are asked time and time again to make choices. And a great deal of the time, we don’t like either choice.
Then on top of that, we subject ourselves to the right and wrong test continuously. Usually based on some cobbled-together collection of belief systems, influences, and memories that we use to justify our own choices. And we project out into the world our own interpretation of right and wrong in judgment of everything we come in contact with.
Now, there is nothing wrong with having a strong sense of right and wrong for ourselves. That is called our guidelines. Our guidelines help us navigate our world in a way that is comfortable for us. They give us parameters to consider in our daily choices.
Hand in hand with our guidelines are our opinions. Both valid and we use these to determine right and wrong for ourselves. The problems begin when we start projecting our guidelines out onto others with an expectation that those guidelines are observed and met. And this is where right and wrong jump the tracks.
Typically, right and wrong in general terms was developed as a means to avoid harming others in some fashion. Meaning we needed widespread guidelines that we have incorporated as laws and/or cultural norms with punishment for failing to follow those decrees. As a result, a great many people feel it is their job to judge what others do and try to control others’ choices. Not only that, but they also feel that there must be justice when another falls outside of these guidelines. Not only is someone else wrong, but they must pay for being wrong. This insures that others will not make the mistake of being wrong, lest they befall the same consequences as the punished.
So with all that said, we could surmise that what someone else does is affecting of us somehow. That we are then victims to others’ choices, therefore we must control the choices that others make. And they must pay for their errors.
These things all together cause and create more hardship and suffering than any other single thing in our lives. It affects our thinking, our stress levels, our emotions, and often leads to extremely deleterious effects of our day to day lives. It leads to an extraordinarily great deal of disharmony.
NOW, what if you knew that what someone else is doing, what someone else is choosing would have no affect on you whatsoever? Would you then be so quick to judge? Would you even care?
Likely not. And I can tell you that with the Shift, while belief systems are not going away, they will lose affectingness. What that means to me is that we are going to become so adept at consciously creating our own reality, it won’t matter what anyone else is doing. They can do what they do, and we will do what we do unaffected by them.
And what is the best reason for allowing others to choose as they wish? Because then we will be able to choose as we wish.
So now we move back into that idea of acceptance. Acceptance of others. Acceptance of their choices. Acceptance of their differences. And in return, we will be accepted in kind.
Are we there yet? Are we such complete conscious creators that we can utterly ignore what others are doing? Not quite. But we can begin practicing acceptance of differences. The allowing of people who choose and act differently than ourselves. We can stop judging them. We can stop making them wrong. We can begin understanding that they may be making choices we wouldn’t, or doing things we even abhor, but it need not affect us.
I am not saying we should turn our heads and ignore when children are being slaughtered for instance. We have our guidelines, and our opinions, and we should not be shy about sharing them. Especially among those who are becoming more self-aware — new perspectives are needed and necessary.
But then there comes a point where we must find it in ourselves to be kind. To understand that a great many things are coming to light and being worked out, and with all our baggage and trauma and history, it’s going to be ugly. And a whole boatload of people aren’t going to get it now, and likely never will. Many, many of the focuses alive today will transition without ever having moved one step in the direction of greater awareness. It isn’t their position in the grand scale of Essence focuses to be any different than they are. And one thing will never change and that is that we are all interconnected and what we do to any we do to ourselves.
So perhaps we can find kindness in our hearts, compassion, awareness, understanding. We don’t have to like what someone else chooses… in fact, we can hate it, abhor it. But we don’t have to participate in it either. And there is no reason in the world that we must judge and punish those who are different than us. We are only punishing ourselves.
Especially when we get angry, upset, hurt, sad, mad, stressed out over what someone else is doing. That hurts us, and we often then project that out into our surroundings — to our loved ones, our community. Yet another negative energy blowing up bombs and creating catastrophes in our world.
I know we’re not there yet with others not affecting us through their choices where we have completely risen above victim-hood. But the time is coming when we will all be able to create what we wish and choose completely what we want to participate in. And we could all offer ourselves some ease by not holding our own guidelines of right and wrong, justice and responsibility as our primary source of reflection, and allow it to influence our well-being and those around us.
Quite simply, we can let everyone off the hook for how they make us feel. And when we do that, we let ourselves off the hook for no longer being responsible what other people choose. In my book, that’s a win-win. And since I have moved in that direction, not perfectly by any means but substantially, my own well-being has burgeoned and I no longer feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. And because I am not so focused on being right, it is much more difficult for someone to manipulate me based on limiting my choices. I always know that there are always many choices, and they’re all mine to make. It’s all tied together. Just like we are all inter-connected. And I’m a much happier and healthier person for it.
I hope that the exploration of this subject spurs reflection on the part of the reader. So many everywhere are trying so hard to determine right from wrong and project it onto others. It only creates further conflict. To change the world, change yourself. There is no other way.
This is undoing millennia of a certain way of perceiving our world. The Shift is changing everything and right and wrong, justice, acceptance are all going to take on new meanings. It is for us to discover what it will mean to express as Essence in a physical reality. It is definitely going to require fervent reflection on our habitual behaviors. Probably one of the most challenging things I have encountered thus far.
I very much agree with the notion that we ought to stop caring so much with what other people say and think and do. Indeed, I am writing something on this subject for today, as it happens.
Two caveats, though.
First, there is a small set of moral principles that are objectively true. Anything that initiates coercive force or subjects another to nonconsensual transactions or impositions of authority is morally impermissible. That is natural law.
Second, the coercive nature of our governments makes what other people think our business, on one level, because “democracy” gives them the power to force their views on us via the ballot.
I don’t want to care what anyone thinks and does, so long as it does not initiate force. But the system makes it hard to completely let that go.
What is the picture of the cabin from? I made a collage of what I would like to experience and manifest into my life. I think that picture is on it. Or one very, very similar. And on that collage I have hearth and home written. How funny. So any ideas on when this shift will be complete? How much harm must come before healing? I agree with your perspective on choices. Been working for the last few years on letting go of control and judgement of others, and focusing on what I can do that's beneficial instead. It can be very hard at times, but I'm getting better at it. Though sometimes I feel like I'm trying to chisel through a 10 foot thick stone wall with no chisel.