I believe that you should always believe you are capable of being a good person. You shouldn’t do the right thing out of a sense of inherent subservience or because you think you lack value. You should do the right thing because you have an unwavering confidence that you have the capability to enrich other people’s lives.
That doesn’t mean other people have to believe it. And often they won’t. Sometimes people may tell you that you hurt them so badly, you can’t stop hurting people. They may tell you that your efforts to change will always fall short and are inherently worthless.
They may think that you deserve to be locked up for what you’ve done, possibly. They may permanently not trust you.
Here’s what you have to do: Believe that you can do better.
Don’t ever operate from a place of worthlessness. Act, always, from a place of confidence, with the knowledge that you are a valuable person and have value to offer the world.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that you should unduly enter spaces that people don’t want you to be in. Have enough dignity within yourself, and enough empathy for other people, to notice that there are places in which you cannot make things better. Empower the people who can, if you can. Otherwise, you do the best you can do to be a better person, bravely, in spite of others thinking it is impossible.
It may be a lonely road. But you have to do it, as long as you’re breathing. You can never embrace the alternative — that you are worthless, that you do not deserve to be here, that you are a hopeless case. Do that, and the real danger is that you may become worse for the world.
It may be a difficult road, as well. It’s not easy to change. The excruciatingly hard step you took towards being a better person may look like a millimeter. But you have to see it as further exposing the person you are and can be. You have to have that faith.
No, I’m not saying that all standards of “good” are equal. I’m saying that you have to decide what is good, based on the actions that will create the best possible outcome for all concerned. Including yourself.
Do not spend so much of your life chasing after value that you miss the value that resides in yourself. From that place of inherent value and worth — an often selfish-seeming place — you can find the value inherent in other people. Once you understand why you are valuable, don’t keep it to yourself; use that sense of your own inherent worth to see the value in other people.
That can make life more valuable, even when it is hard or tragic. Even in the midst of disappointment in yourself and others, it can be a beacon that empowers you to keep going.
I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. Do the right thing and pay penance if it’s required, but don’t ever forget that you have capability to be a good person.
Maybe some factors that were part of you doing a bad thing might also be the key to you becoming a better person, as well. Focus on positive applications and manifestations of who you are, and stay away from any that hurt the value in others that you see in yourself.
Perhaps this is controversial advice, but it’s necessary. I’ve seen a lot of condemnation of various people in various corners, so I think this is something that needed to be said.
People have value.
Regardless of your race, gender, or ideology, you are not trash. You are a valuable human being.
See value in yourself so you can see it shine in others.
Thanks for reading.
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