It’s fascinating seeing how many of us have the same worries and insecurities. In a twisted way it’s comforting having a common denominator with complete strangers. In another way it’s tragic that so many of us are sacrificing our peace at the altar of misery and deprivation.
Maybe deprivation isn’t completely correct. Some of us sacrifice our peace at the altar of plenty. We trade our time for more money; more success; more stuff!
The tragedy of that is that money is replaceable. Time is not. If the equation worked the other way that would be perfection; trading something replaceable for something irreplaceable. That’s not how it’s working for most people.
Time is traded for more and more money to be able to get stuff to make living more comfortable. When exactly are you living? When exactly are you enjoying all the stuff you’ve accumulated when your time is thrown at acquiring more of it? ‘I’m working to provide for my family.’ That’s very noble, make no mistake.
BUT. Your partner cannot cuddle a credit card. Your children can’t make a cheque book laugh. Your friends can’t have a beer and share laughs with your piggy bank. YOU are necessary to complete those transactions.
Relationships go down the drain; marriages end and your partner makes off with half of your stuff when what they probably really wanted was you. Friendships are traded for success because who has time to maintain those when you’re working 80 hours a week for your 6 figure salary?
Then there are those who sacrifice their peace at the altar of deprivation. Every little pleasure is regretted and penalties must be paid. Finding pleasure in a tasty morsel is repaid with hours of self-loathing and self-abuse to ‘work it off.’ Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order. We already know that.
There needs to be a balance. Sure, if you just ate 87 doughnuts, 14 boxes of cookies, 2 buckets of chicken and a partridge in a pear tree, then ok; you need to reel that in. To hate and punish yourself for finding pleasure in a hot chocolate with marshmallows, or a rich slice of something delicious makes no bloody sense at all.
What if…. What if Judgement Day isn’t an accounting of your sins and failings but rather an accounting of every happiness and pleasure that you’ve thrown away with both hands? If you had to stand before your God of choice and the question was: Why did you deny yourself the pleasures I created for you? Do you have anything close to a decent response to that question? I’m going to go with no.
There’s no excuse that’s valid. Between climbing the success ladder striving for perfection (which is already impossible to achieve anyway) and piling on the self-loathing, we’re still reminded about all the sins we commit on a regular basis; so eternity isn’t looking good either.
Well here’s a nugget of useless information for you: The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Hebrew word ‘syn’ which was a term used in archery. It means ‘to miss the mark.’ So not eternal damnation, merely an error.
It would be interesting to know how many lives would have been lived differently if that nugget of information had been taught instead. Just a thought…
Thank you for taking the time to offer feedback; it’s always appreciated. I find I write the way I think, which often follows multiple threads of thought. I use writing as a way to clear my head and try to make sense of what I’m thinking. I’ve been trying to fill in the gaps in my logic for years. It’s become sort of a constant work in progress; sometimes I accomplish what I’m aiming for, other times it’s more of a hit and miss scenario. The search for logic continues 🙂