Disappointment. Faith. Trust. Love.
These emotions define the human race, define our relationships, define our history and our wars and our lives. We trust those close to us, and we are disappointed when they fail to meet our expectations. We trust wholeheartedly in creeds and doctrines that make us miserable, and we love the blind obedience of faith. We project our perceptions onto the reality of others’ lives, onto the reality of our own lives, and there’s only one way to avoid being burned time and time again.
Honesty. Honesty, not with another person, but with ourselves.
We have to be able to examine our own desires, our own needs, our own wishes, and judge whether or not what we expect from someone else is in keeping with that person’s actual behavior. We each must ask, “Am I seeing who this person really is, or am I seeing who I want him to be?” We have to look at our own actions, clearly and objectively, and determine whether or not the outcome is something to be avoided.
The spouses who stick with their abusive partners, thinking that this time it’s going to change, this time it’s going to work out, unable to see the truth right in front of them—why do they continue to lie to themselves? Fear of change, of giving up one bad situation for a potentially worse one? Blind hope, that the fairy tale will come true if they just believe hard enough? What makes them ignore everything their eyes and ears are witnessing? What makes their brains try to override reality with idealized visions of people who doesn’t truly care for them? When will they recognize the truth—that they’re saddled with monsters who don’t care one whit for their feelings and dreams?
The worker stuck at a dead-end job, passed over for promotion again and again, yet somehow convinced that this time will be the one. Why does he put up with the demeaning pettiness of his boss, day in and day out? He knows exactly how he’s going to be treated, that hasn’t changed in ten years, yet he’s still disappointed when performance reviews come around and he’s stuck at the same desk he’s been sitting at for his entire career. Why is he disappointed? He shouldn’t be, because reality is right there in front of him. He just doesn’t want to see it. When will he stop lying to himself?
The woman whose heart breaks every time her spouse cheats on her, even though he’s done it multiple times before. The father who yells at his son for wanting to read instead of play sports, though the boy doesn’t have the slightest inclination toward athletics. The believer who shunts all responsibility onto representatives of the faith and then asks how such horrible things could have happened. Countless people in countless places, all perfectly capable of sight, yet all unwilling to see—liars, every single one, blaming others for being themselves. When will they stop lying, stop treating their false conceptions as reality?
I find that I am rarely disappointed by people. I pay attention to them, I study them, and I define them by their actions, not by what they say or profess to believe. I know multiple people who claim to be religious, who attend Bible study and church on a regular basis, and yet act as if those tenets are merely a form to be observed, a box to be checked off on a list. The other six days of the week they go out to strip clubs; they gamble; they get into fights; they occasionally get arrested, and when they do, I’m not surprised or let down, because I’m honest enough with myself to see them for who they are, not who I wish them to be.
I know others who claim to be intelligent yet frequently act against their own best interests. Spending money they don’t have, ignoring a job in favor of play, valuing objects over people, and then they’re supremely disappointed when life doesn’t work out in their favor. Why are they disappointed? The path they followed led to one clear outcome, and every step down it was made by conscious choice—yet they followed it anyway, one foot after the other, in a slow march toward inevitability.
I know people who’ve played in the NFL for five, six, seven, or more years who are disappointed when the team that says “You’re a member of the family” gets rid of them due to injury or a down year. Why be disappointed? This is one of the most cutthroat industries in the world (aside from actual piracy), and all you have to do is watch the waiver wire each year to see the truth of that. We all get cut eventually, it’s just a question of when, but guys are shocked by it time and time again. They believe the lies that are fed to them because they’re lying to themselves, putting their faith in a mirage of feelings and camaraderie when they know this is a cold money business—what have you done for me lately? Can we get someone cheaper? Have the honesty to see the time you’re living on is borrowed; enjoy what you can while it lasts, because it always ends sooner than you think it will.
One of the most enduring proverbs from ancient Greece is Gnothi seauton—“Know thyself.” It echoes throughout history. Socrates, Plato, Hobbes, Pope, Franklin—all of them concerned with recognizing what drives and motivates humankind, because how can a person understand the actions of someone else when he can’t even understand his own? How can any of us avoid making the same mistakes over and over, judging the same people the same wrong way again and again, tripping down the same path to the same destination that shouldn’t be such a surprise but always is?
We know the answer. We just don’t like admitting it.
Honesty.
It’s not the best policy.
It’s the only policy.