Sometimes You Have to Be Very “Reasonable” to Justify Your Actions
I saw the movie, “12 Years A Slave,” last weekend. It’s based on a true story of a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery. And, as expected, it shows the brutality of slavery.
It also shows the justification that slave owners used to participate in this kind of meanness. For example, they frequently quoted the Bible which tells how to whip a servant. And one plantation owner compared his slaves to baboons, in an attempt to justify treating them like animals.
But the Problem Is That Justification Never Works
Meanness just doesn’t sit with the heart.
The same movie depicts a drunkard who was previously a slave owner, but couldn’t take it. He turned to alcohol to escape the self-inflicted pain of hurting others.
It hurts to hurt another human being. It hurts to hurt anything. That’s why the mind needs lots of reasons, and justifications, and complicated logics to do something mean. It just doesn’t come naturally.
This Can Be Helpful When Doing Inquiry
Just notice any time when you’re being mean. What are the reasons you give for acting that way? There will be some. There have to be.
What are the reasons? Write them down. And question them with the four questions and turnarounds of The Work. You may find that you don’t need to be mean after all. There may be no reason for it at all.
Have a great week,
Todd
“We are love, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Love is our nature. It’s what we are without our stories.” — Byron Katie, Question Your Thinking Change The World, p. 16.
