Was talking with a good friend tonight who was expressing concern and anxiety about his job. A coworker of his is apparently on track toward possibly being fired. My friend is concerned that the boss' attention and focus will subsequently be turned on him. He is feeling insecure about his position, his standing at his job and with his boss. Nevermind that he's worked there for more than two decades, has received numerous commendations and awards for his work, or that his students love him (while they generally hate his coworker). Nevermind that he's terrific at, passionate about, and dedicated to his job.
My friend never feels the full confidence and peace of self-acceptance. Many (most) of us generally don't. I recently started reading Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach about just this subject.
I was musing about this all as I went about my evening. Another phone call I had tonight was a long conversation with my sister, discussing our mother who moved two weeks ago to a small town in Idaho in order to prepare herself for the supposed coming apocalypse that she and her friends predict will soon befall America, a result of "God's judgement." She and her friends spend their every waking moment delineating between those who they believe are in good standing with God (which is always, coincidentally, themselves) and those who they believe are not.
I've spent my life in that constant state of self-rejection - the opposite of self-acceptance, nay? - believing that I've never quite "gotten it right." Not right with God according to my mother. Not right in terms of "success" according to my father. Not right in my work. Not right with my friends. Not right (certainly) with my family. What a terribly polarized place to be. What loneliness, what self-recrimination, what reason for striving, over-thinking, hopelessness.
I was thinking this evening about my good friend, worried as he is about his boss' disfavor being turned on him. And I was thinking how my mother and her "End Times" cronies preach that "gospel" (hah - "good news" my ass) daily. They preach - and seem to relish in the thought of - God's disfavor being turned against most of us in America and the world, against all those of us who are not in the midst of their small cloister of self-righteous "purity".
God's favor. Man's favor. Who decides? Who decides when we've satisfied it or when we have not? Can we each individually ever perhaps reach a place of peace and self-acceptance, satisfied that we're our best selves at this moment and let that be good enough? Can we trust that our best can maybe be enough - enough with those who care about us... and certainly, enough with the supreme being, if there is indeed one, who made us, who supposedly loves us?
Why are we so given toward striving against ourselves and each other, instead of believing in and practicing acceptance, compassion, love?
