Advice for an Idealist

[I read this and I know how ‘ideal’ it is… but suddenly I also see how ‘impossible’ it might be, how this has at times set me up for confusion, collision or let down.]

This is a hard lesson for an idealist like myself, but it’s come up enough times for me to have to acknowledge, and perhaps even (gasp) embrace:

No matter how often you try to do “the right thing” or act from your highest self, be prepared or “ahead of the game”, model perfect speech or behavior, sometimes it’s going to backfire in a way that makes you question life’s whole design.

It’s almost comical to me now how many times I’ve struggled or scrambled to be prepared for something only to discover that I wasted my time because no one else was as prepared – Or they just decided to stop mid-way or change directions without communicating this to me. Hmm. A strange lesson for someone always taught to be on time. With assignment completed. Foresight into unseen things greatly appreciated (probably even expected).

So this is who I have tried to be, learning to contemplate others’ needs, feelings and expectations, finding the way of greatest integrity simultaneously.

Ug. I read this and I know how ‘ideal’ it is… but suddenly I also see how ‘impossible’ it might be, how this has at times set me up for confusion, collision or let down.

Just a month or more ago, there were two back to back situations in which I struggled to do the “best possible thing”. And I did. I did what I thought was the highest thing I could do. But then why was there any ‘struggle’, you might ask.

Because – as I later discovered – I did not actually feel good about what I perceived to be the most righteous action. It rubbed my soul or spirit or personal belief system the wrong way. I acted against myself in favor of something “out there”… Something that I have possibly given too much power…

To clarify, in neither of these situations would someone have been negatively impacted if I just did what my gut was telling me. I, on the other hand, was adversely affected by ignoring it, feeling an inner discord and disconnect from my own sense of decency.

Have I been leaving myself out of the equation, not seeing me, myself or I as an equal benefactor of all things fair, wild and all in between?

This is a curious lesson after four plus decades of life on this planet, a potent message of personal power over perceived “right”-eousness.

And it’s one I’m going to have to walk with for a while.