Alright, so, something I’ve been talking about with my therapist a lot, but I thoughts folks out here could have interesting povs.
To sum it up, I’m constantly trying to act like a saint (figuratively, I’m an atheist). There’s one exception to this, people holding power and making others miserable in any way.
But basically, you know, this whole mentality of banishing anger, jealousy, egoism, selfishness, greed, desire for power and authority and all that? That’s me.
I don’t mean I manage to do so constantly, but that’s what I strive for.
One could think, and I did think, it was a desire for social praise. But really, when I get praised, which happen a lot, I don’t care and that’s more awkward that anything (like : woa dude, it’s not the Oscars or something, chill out). And little by little, I started to think it didn’t have much to do with being praised, that’s just striving to live as I think it’s better to live. To live a life I’ll me content with when the grim reaper will come and all praises won’t mean anything anymore.
My therapist thinks it’s not really an issue as long as it doesn’t cause myself pain (which it does because I’m deaf to my own needs 50% of the times).
But I don’t see a satisfying way to live apart from that.
One potential misinterpretation I’d like to prevent. It’s a very strong drive, but it doesn’t make me blind. It really doesn’t happen a lot but whenever I’m angry, I’m not feeling guilty. I know why I feel this, it’s just that I didn’t have any other way to manage a situation/feeling. I’ll just strive to do better next time by trying to modify the situation so that anger will not be the most probable answer.
Do you find it weird? Anyone adopting this kind of behavior? Maybe everyone does. It may sound a bit megalomaniac, like hey I’m exceptional, but it really isn’t what I mean. To my own eyes, I’m not a bad or a good person. I’m just trying to be what I want. If somebody tries to be someone different, it’s all fine by me.
TL;DR : Is having high moral standards for one’s self weird or toxic? Does my message actually sound megalomaniac?
I like this conversation very much too. And I like the way you describe your will to volunteer and your conception of the steps ahead.
As for religions, I’m not certain. I can really like and admire people who live and love deeply something in the religious faith. Alone or with others. But communities… I’m not saying social control is bad in itself but this type of social control is rather frightening to me.
And changing… What a topic! Did you ever try to measure the time it takes you to change on a specific aspect? It’s a very strange yet reassuring experience. I used to do this a lot, a bit less nowadays, but for example, I’d write :
“learn to handle praise to be as kind as possible with others, understanding it as” somehow I kinda like something in you" and accept the kindness but be unsettled by the praise itself, or, better, make yourself truly incapable of understanding it as a praise"
in a notebook, because it was a very often present in my thoughts and then, after writing, forget about it. Let things unfold organically without giving it much thoughts. An indeterminate time later, I’d be praised for school performance, for example, and… somehow, in a way I couldn’t fully understand, I both felt I understood the praise and I didn’t really know what to make of it, all the sudden.
Then, a few weeks later, after processing the event, grab my notebook and write : “8 months”.
It’s quite interesting, and gives a little sense of : “Hmmm… this may take quite a time, but let’s see when/how/by which ways I’ll try to get there… or at least somewhere close!”