I am bad enough to be good … June 20, 2013

(1918)

I’ve never wanted to be called “Reverend.” It makes people want my “thou” to be “holier.”

I really never had a desire to be a doctor. The notion of a bunch of sick people asking for free advice never appealed to me. Also, just think how embarrassing it would be to get a cold–a bunch of individuals walking up with smirks, saying, “Physician, heal thyself…”

I don’t care for the idea of being a professor. I am comfortable in my britches and don’t need to be smarter than them.

The ideal position in life is realizing that you’re bad enough to be good. In other words, I am completely capable of doing stupid things. So please note my effort to avoid such nonsense–and acknowledge when I escape the mediocre.

When you live your life believing that a certain quotient of goodness must be assessed to you before you even begin the game, you will do anything in your power to maintain that image.  Even lie. Or maybe I should say, especially lie.

Here’s the major problem with lying. It’s not pleasing to anyone:

• It doesn’t please God, because God demands truth on the inward parts.
• It doesn’t please other people–because they can’t trust you.
• And it doesn’t please yourself, because even in those  times when you get by with your lie, deep in your heart you know there’s absolutely no validity to what you claimed.

Lying is the most dissatisfying experience, pursued by the largest majority of people–to no conclusion.

I became a human being of value the day that I admitted I was bad enough to be good. For after all, I must confess ten faults before I’m worthy to claim one victory. If I feel that I lose “soul” or “purpose” in the process of repenting of my dopiness, I will probably avoid doing it and end up getting caught in a lie that I conjured to protect my sense of personal holiness.

Lying is what human beings do when they believe they really aren’t enough, while simultaneously protecting what they think they possess.

It’s just a mess.

I will never achieve anything of goodness until I am adequately able to identify what is truly useless. Since I am not a magician, when I try to make useless things appear to be good, I end up holding the wrong cards in my hand, looking like a klutzy conjurer.

And since I’m not a Reverend, a doctor or a professor, I can afford to be just ME–capable of great error–therefore also enabled to surprise you with an occasional blessing, as I actually land on an appropriate response.

I don’t know if I can convince you in this short essay of the value of realizing incompleteness. But if you can begin to comprehend that what we fear the most is being abandoned, then you can begin a journey toward great friendships based on honesty, instead of precariously perched on a pedestal of mis-truths.

I am bad enough to be good.

It’s obvious that I’m good enough to be bad, but because I am not afraid of my shortcomings and I’m willing to be long-suffering with the errors of others because I understand my weaknesses, I can land at a happy medium of never being too intense to prove my point or too afraid … of being alone.

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 Jonathots, Jr.!

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