If you have been looked down on your whole life, especially by the people you look up to the most, it can be hard to remember that there are things about you that are worth admiring.
If you don’t remember that there are things about you worth admiring, you’ll have a hard seeing that which is worth admiring in anyone else.
If you look up to people who look down on you, eventually you will come to a cross roads. Especially if you are seeking a life where you want people to look up to you.
This is what is meant when people warn you “those who want to manipulate or control you won’t be happy when you start trying to strike out on your own”. People who look down on you don’t like it when you start expecting and/or demanding respect.
People who genuinely care about you will listen when you say “you don’t respect me”. They will try to have an honest conversation about what’s really going on. What your perception is of their attitude towards you, how they can more clearly communicate what they want you to feel from them.
That’s how you separate the wheat from the chaff, meaning that’s how you identify someone’s true colors. By challenging the status quo and seeing how they react. Even if it catches them off guard at first and they come back with something you didn’t expect, anyone who cares about their relationship with you or even about their own self-image will second guess themselves. They’ll reflect and come back to you with the understanding of “hey, I think I might have made a mistake here. Can I try this again?”
Today I have been thinking a lot about honor, integrity, and death.
Death is the thing that comes to mind every now and then, especially when I’m in arguments with family members. I often think “if this person died tomorrow, would I regret the last thing I said to them?” Or “if this person was dying, would he or she regret what he/she said to me?”
Can you find honor within dishonorable circumstances? This has been today’s theme. Can you live in squalor and still feel like you’re making honorable decisions? Can your life be in shambles from the outside perspective yet within you’re totally at peace, in harmony and in alignment within yourself because you know you’re behaving honorably within your circumstances?
Can you embrace a sense of honor without denying reality, without escaping from it or choosing an artifical experience – drugs, video games, anything that helps relieve the pressure of facing what’s really happening?
If you can, you are truly winning in life, I believe.
If you can live the most dishonorable existence imaginable and still lay your head on your pillow every night knowing “I did my best, I didn’t betray myself, I didn’t betray God, I didn’t betray my own word or what I came here to do. I lost every single battle I faced but I am still winning the war because I didn’t give into the dark side.” I think you truly are winning the game of existence.
And God will test you every single step of the way to see if you are worthy of victory within. Even if it means seeing how you handle losing everything and then some. Even your dignity, your pride.
If you choose a life that appears victorious but betray yourself every step of the way, what will you have if that external life is stripped away? If the house you bought crumbles, the cars go up in flames, the children abandon you, the spouse takes everything and leaves you with nothing but debt. Will all of the choices you made leading up to that be worth it?
No one ever really thinks about that as they’re building the legacy they think they’re supposed to create. They don’t face the shame that each dishonorable choice generates within them if it leads them one step closer to external “success”.
If going to college means you abandon your free will, is it worth it? Just because someone said that piece of paper will earn you a few extra $ each year?
If getting married means giving up on finding the love of your life and settling down with someone who secretely loathes you, is it worth it? Just because you get a ring, you get your family off your back, and an artificial win you can post about on social media on your wedding day? Even if everyone who looks at the photos can see that the light is missing from your eyes as you say “I do”?
Every time you abandon yourself in order to appease someone else, no matter how flashy and glamorous or respectable your life looks from the outside, you generate shame within the self. You move further away from living an honorable life and existence.
This separation can be felt. It can be known only within the self. No one else can be a steward of that which is honorable for you. They cannot hand you a guide book and say “here are the honorable choices and the dishonorable ones”.
They can teach you guidelines. Show you what the ropes along the way look like. Do their best to help you understand how it feels when you move beyond them. But they can’t stand over your shoulder and assess every choice you make, saying “this is the right one, that one’s wrong”. That’s what discernment is for. So you don’t need anyone else to do that for you, and so you can tell other people who do try to do that to buzz off and live their own lives so you can figure yours out accordingly.
A society that protects the most honorable among them also has a path that allows each and every person who seeks to join them to walk the same way. A society where your veteran military members are ranked among the elite provides guideposts for those who are seeking to earn their way to the top of the hierarchy. As long as your military generals, commanders, and leaders are taught to make every decision based on that which will bring the most honor to themselves, their family, their team, their country, and whomever they are charged to protect.
This is why a world military can only work once everyone stops competing to be the #1 society and aims to protect one another from the worst of the worst in each culture.
Can you experience a sense of honor even when you are living in squalor? Even when you have lost everything except yourself?
All winners prepare themselves to lose often.
What about warriors who prepare themselves to be punished before they ever make themselves worthy of receiving riches, rewards, or achieving victory? What about those who see punishment itself as a sign that they are on the right path, even when they go out just to incite those experiences of self-aggrandizement?
Which camp do you fall in? Do you look for other people’s disapproval as a sign that you are on the right path? Do you hope they’ll approve of your choices as a way to know that you’re doing the right thing? Or are you courageous enough to strike out on your own no matter whether people approve, disapprove, or don’t care either way?
That is your journaling prompt for today. Know Thyself. Where do you stand in relation to the Warrior’s way? Does your code of honor come from within or without?
There is bonus content for today, but be forewarned, if you are not prepared to explore viewpoints that may directly oppose that which you’ve taught to think is “right” and “good”, you might be triggered. This isn’t a trigger warning, it’s an invitation to relax. Put down your defenses, let down your guard, and consider that somethings you’ve been taught have actually been designed to keep you caged in instead of truly protect you from anything worth protecting you from.
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