June 24, 2008
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What If I Don’t?
We human beings are possessed of a disease called: the desire for absolutely unconditional acceptance
Don’t get me wrong. We like to strive. We love to better ourselves. And nothing motivates us more to do so than the good regard of the people we care about. We want our loved ones to not just like us but respect and admire us too. We want them to look upon us and see a person worthy of knowing, worthy of being their friend.
If we stopped there maybe everything would be a-okay. But no. We are selfish creatures. We want even more than that from another. Or at least from someone.
So we’re always asking something like… well
What if I don’t?What if I don’t get better? What if I don’t go further? What if I don’t grow? What if I don’t live up to my potential? What if I don’t become more than I am?
What if I’m not kind? What if I can’t help anyone? What if I never change anyone? What if I can’t fix anybody’s problems?
What if I can’t stop myself from being pushy or arrogant or smart-aleck or rude or disgusting? What if I lie? What if I cheat? What if I deceive? What if I can’t make myself be the person that others need me to be?
What if I hurt people?
What if I fail at everything I try? What if I lose? Even if I try my hardest, what if I just can’t do it? Not any of it. What if I’m not good enough?
What if everyone hates me? What if no one ever cares about me? What if I never fall in love? What if I’m never really happy? What if.. at best… I can only pretend to be?
What if I never make something of myself? What if I don’t ever find the things I want to out of life? What if I’m never motivated? What if nothing ever means anything to me? What if I’m always childish? What if I never get organized? What if I’m always lazy? What if I waste my life away on trivial things?
What if I can’t become stronger? What if I’m not smart enough or wise enough? What if I’m weak? What if I’m a coward? What if I break down? What if I fall apart? What if I run away?
What if I give up?
What if I just… let myself go?
What if I die?
Those are the questions we ask. We don’t want to be this way. We want to succeed. We want to be happy. We want to live! We want good things for ourselves. But we’re also wondering always… What if I won’t? What if I can’t? What if I don’t?
We don’t want it to be this way. Lots of times we don’t even really believe it might turn out this way. But we know, better than anyone, that the possibility exists. And all along inside us is that overwhelming desperate fear. Not that these things will happen. No. That’s not what scares us.
What scares us is that we don’t… and then because of that we are rejected. That nobody will be able to accept us once they know the terrible things that we’ve been and that we are capable of being. We’re afraid everyone will just give up on us. Just totally abandon us.
And then we’ll be all alone.
So that’s why we’re always looking for that absolutely irrational, totally ridiculous, completely incomprehensible unconditional acceptance. We’re trying to find the person or persons who can give it to us. We’re looking for the people who will say it’s ok. No matter what. It’s ok.
And we’ll push them and challenge those people too. Even if we think we’ve found it, or nearly it. We won’t believe them. We might, even part of us, hate them for it. “How dare they pretend to care about me?” We’ll think. “They don’t know a damn thing about me. About what I’m capable of.”
And unfortunately, most of us, because we are rational, because we never really were that unconditional in the first place, will, when faced with that challenge, give up. And then the person, through his or her own fault will end up just as they feared they would become. Alone and forgotten.
Is there a better way? Can we change ourselves so we don’t need absolutely unconditional acceptance?
I don’t think so. No. I don’t think we should have to. It’s an abnormality true. A corruption of logic. So maybe in a cold hard rationalist objective analysis we can see that it’d be best for us as a species if we just gave up on it and we were all more realistic about the limits of human tolerance.
But I don’t want that to happen.
Maybe I’m naive, but I think there’s a better way for us to deal with it. I think we can go on diseased though we are and be happier for it. There’s only one thing we have to change in order to do that too. We don’t have to stop wanting that absolutely unconditional acceptance.
We just have to be willing to give it to someone.
And once we start doing that. Each and every one of us, accepting someone, if only just one or two people, unconditionally, no matter what, then maybe we’ll each find others who will do the same for us. When we need them to.
Then there will be someone whom when we angrily challenge then and say:
“Oh yeah? Well what if I don’t?! Huh? What then?”
The honest true answer will always be:
“I’ll still love you anyway.”
Comments (12)
What if….
= ) This is a good piece.
RYC: Thank you.
Excellent excellent writing.
the what ifs are what keep us up at night and you’re right and thank goodness for those people who always there for us when we need them to be.
*clapclapclap* Awesome!
Wow, your blog beats mine at blogged.com by three points.
MINE: 6.7
YOURS: 7.0
*dies*
Wow really great post, it really makes you think.
@fullmetalbunny - lol. Wow, we’re pretty close. I think the editors are nuts though.
Thanks so much for the kind review!
Love vanquishes fear.
***Boring opinion alert***
I think there is a difference between people and human beings. The latter using their mammalian portion of the brain, while the other mostly uses the lower reptilian.
We all need love. Love is unconditional.
I’m glad you exist.
I really liked this blog post. Not for what you said but also how you wrote it. I like how you had all your thoughs broken up into little readable chunks that felt right. That’s hard to do. I always try to break up my writting into readable chunks too but sometimes it doesn’t work out as beautifully as you have done here.
I mean what you said was pretty interesting. It’s would be wonderful to find someone that likes you for all you are right now and not for what you might be in the future or what they hope you will be in the future.
i think a lot of people get into a relationship hoping for something better, like well the person i’m with now is okay but not great maybe i can change that, and that usually doesn’t work. sure there are compermises you have to make when in a relationship but generally you have to pretty much like each other for everything they are to begin with… or at least i would hope so.
sure there are a lot of things i complain about of W but i just like complaining ^_^ *gasp*
continuing writing well… maybe someday you can make a book? or something… ^_^
@raindrops23 - thanks for the praise! I pretty much write how I think it would sound good if it were spoken. It’s sort of intuitive. I’m not that good at grammar or rules or anything. So although I’d love to get published, I need a really good editor I think! And I’m also really very lazy sometimes and I don’t take well to getting my writing rejected so it’s hard for me to get motivated along those lines. But even so that’s my long term goal and I’m going to keep working toward it!
This piece, when I wrote it was inspired by a song and some posts I read lately about sibling relationships and thoughts about my own siblings and cousins and some of my friends. And that lead me to thinking of parental relationships too. And of course it’s equally and probably even more applicable to romantic relationships.
But I agree with you too. What I’m writing about really has nothing to do with criticism and complaint. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all. I think we can unconditionally accept someone even though we complain at them every day. Wanting someone to better themselves for their own sake is a good thing I think. Plus complaints can be fun! I like to “rant” myself. That’s why I have a blog to get that out of my system. ^_^
And yet, I think yeah you have to like unconditionally some essential aspect of the person you are with from the beginning and not just hope that they become a totally different person one day in the future that you would accept. If you don’t accept who they are at their core, then I think that’s bad news in the long run. Maybe it can still work, I dunno, just seems like a bad way to start out to me.
So basically unconditional acceptance to me doesn’t mean liking every aspect of someone or even most aspects. I wholly expect the people you accept to continuously annoy you just as much even after you accept them. I’m just saying not to try not to reject everyone just because there’s something they are or become or fail to become that you don’t like. It’s fine to do that for some people. I’m certainly not saying you should unconditionally accept every mass murderer or rapist in the world. None of us are saints. But it’d be good, I think, if we can each find someone that we let ourselves accept unconditionally.
Ah I’m rambling now. Not sure if I’m making any sense at all but hopefully that clarifies it a little.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
@Fididdle - you are going to *have* to explain more about reptilian and mamilian brains to me some day. It sounds *fascinating*. ^_^
Thanks for the compliment and the rec.
And yeah I’m glad I exist too. hehe. Most days I am anyway.
@Vitamin_D - thanks! I really hope everything works out alright for you.