Tuesday's Mental Musings

In our youth we believe by seeking to express who we are and what we believe in we can change the world, a world, our world. We believe in a revolution of some sorts. We believe change can occur in a relatively short period of time. Most of us flounder somewhere between feeling helpless and believing we can do great things and our actions or inactions promote it. But when action or inaction, as the case may be, is taken to manifest what we believe in everything done is with the expectation that on some level there will be a reward of some kind.

The reward is a personal thing defined only by the person seeking to not only express him or herself but to be heard and affect the world in which they live. Even when the end result is for the elevation or evolution of the group the act of initiating change is a selfish one, it would have to be in order for it to occur. If we did not place our desire to understand, express or achieve above all else there would be nothing. Desire is personal. Desire drives a person to act. Desire is natural. Desire is selfish and there is nothing wrong with that. It is in selfishness that we seek and it is in selflessness that we let go.

I challenge anyone to review all acts of kindness, revolutions of thought and shifts of power and purpose and consider the fact that if the person(s) behind those changes had not had the original and selfish desire to initiate and promote change through their actions and words nothing would have happened. They could have elected to do nothing, many of us do. The decision to act and all actions up until what was/is created takes a life of its own and can no longer be owned by the initiator are all needed acts of selfishness.

The choice to act upon that desire is personal and we choose to act in order to satisfy ourselves. No one does something they don’t want to do. We make decisions, even when our hands feel forced to do so. We choose to do the things we do. I am not considering what type of satisfaction is sought by our actions because satisfaction is, again, a personal fulfillment of a need. Whether we choose to sit in our martyrdom or revel in our joy are further choices we make and a blog post for another time.