Was it worth it?

There is someone that I know, who at fairly regular intervals does something to break trust with me. It's been going on for many years, yet I keep thinking that there will be a major change with this person and they will find a way to stop the inappropriate behaviors.

When we act in ways that breaks trust, there is a withdrawal from our emotional bank account. Though it's easy to talk about the withdrawal, the emotional and psychological pain can be, well in a single word, "terrible." What causes the "terrible" feeling though in not the person breaking the trust but "my reactions," to their behavior. That can be a tough pill to swallow. We like to be able to point and say, "look at what they have done to me," and then confess their (not our own) sins.

I envisioned this person as better, but they didn't fit my vision that I created or imagined. Who is responsible for that... me or them? Did they agree to the image that I created of them? Where they aware and agree to the image I held as to how they where supposed to think and behave?

Soren Kierkegaard once said "once you label me, you negate me." The images that we are sometimes capable of holding towards each other can be a form of negation. We need to be careful about this point.

There is another quote by Kierkegaard that less well know but ever his. It goes, "Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him [or her], for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.

We learn to forgive, because not only have we been forgiven in the past, but the fact is that others can change. People can change. People will change. People do change, when they, not we are ready to make it happen. That is a simple truth that most of us know well.

Since I have been so reflective of Soren Kierkegaard, I will share one last train of thought. He makes an invaluably masterful point.

"Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when everyone has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself me mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself; I have seen men who played hide and seek so long that at last in madness they disgustingly obtruded upon others their secret thoughts which hitherto they had proudly concealed. Or can you think of anything more frightful than that it might end with your nature being resolved into a multiplicity, that you really might become many, become, like those unhappy demoniacs, a legion, and thus would have lost the inmost and holiest thing of all in a man, the unifying power of personality? Truly, you should not jest with that which is not only serious but dreadful. In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself, that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all."

And so, if we cannot see ourselves as we truly are and genuinely act as we are, was it worth it? Was it worth it? Was it worth it? I'd rather be one unified personality rather than the multiplicity.

Namaste'

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO