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Today's
Meditation:
And if it
never works, don't do it, please. There's absolutely
no reason to be mean to other people, no matter what the
circumstances, no matter how much you may think that it's
going to make you feel better to do so. The simple
truth is that it's not going to make you feel better, just
as that alcohol isn't going to drown your sorrows, just as
those drugs aren't going to make you feel better about
your life. Being mean to others is simply an attempt
to make yourself feel better by making someone else feel
worse, and it's a horribly misguided strategy.
If
we're in pain, if we're suffering, then the proper path to
take to get to feeling better is not to make someone else
feel bad. When we do this, we diminish our own
morals and ethics, and we turn ourselves into someone who
isn't willing or able to show compassion to others.
We may think that we're going to feel better when that
other person feels horrible, but as Alan says, "this
never works."
I
think that for most of us, the problem isn't fighting the
tendency to be mean in ourselves, but how to deal with
that tendency in other people who are mean to us and those
we care for. I don't recall ever feeling the desire
to put someone down for the sake of being mean, but I do
know that I have been mean to others without intending to
be so. Perhaps it could do us good to keep in mind
that a mean person is a hurting person who is lashing out
to try to deal with the pain they feel-- and their strategy
isn't working.
Perhaps
if we understand meanness more, we can deal with it more
effectively when it touches us in our lives. Maybe
we can allow it to simply be, without allowing it to bring
us down. No, we shouldn't ignore it because it may
lead to something worse-- and we need to be diligent to
make sure that it doesn't do so-- but if we see it for what
it truly is, we can definitely make ourselves feel better
and possibly even help the mean person to abandon a
strategy that's hurting other people without even creating
the desired effect.
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