You set precedence with your words and actions.
You set precedence with your words and actions. When you give your word, that's it. That's your word. You have given your word and what should follow is the corresponding action. The action is the extension of the word. Basically, your word is your action. Because once you give your word, you are bonded to that action. God forbid that you do not follow with the action guaranteed by your word. There is only one description for that: hypocrisy. When you give your word and you don't follow through with your action, you label yourself a hypocrite in the eyes of your scrutinizers. You are bonded by YOUR words alone. You are not bonded by others' words. That means people can judge you all they want if what they say is true about you. You lay your own road or you lay your own casket with your words. If you are labeled a hypocrite by a hypocrite, it doesn't matter much if YOU went against YOUR word. There is only one way to go against your word and that's if the circumstances change. And if the circumstances do change, you have to explicitly state that the circumstances change and your actions had to counter your words under such circumstances. If you do not try to explicitly state a change in circumstances, you are still liable to be charged as a hypocrite.
Black and white thinking? Think truth is something subjective? Take it to the judge because in the end, people judge you on your words and your ability to carry about your words with action.
With that being said, I've been seeing a lot of lack of accountability. We don't hold people accountable for their words. We don't hold people accountable for their actions. We don't hold people accountable for our expectations of them. We excuse discrepancies in their words, actions, and character. We say "They have their reasons," or "That's just the way they are," like that is supposed to make up for it.
I don't expect people to be perfect. But I do expect people to take some redeemable action in times of imperfection. It seems just natural to me. The ability to improve yourself is the will behind the human will. I'm also a strong believer in karma.
Richelle told me to "not be so confident about myself because it doesn't leave room for self-evaluation." What I think right now about it is that, being confident has taken me a lot of places. The last time I evaluated myself, my biggest problem was my ego. It was not that I was triflin' or a shift liar. My problem was that I was (too) proud of holding standards of honesty and consistency for myself. I put the parentheses in there because I'm only too proud for people who get intimidated by this type of pride. I never said that I was more than what I am. That would be lying. I said what I am and I am what I said. I wish I could be "not so confident" but then I wouldn't be confident in my standards, values, ethics, judgment. If I was not so confident, I couldn't hold people accountable for anything, which brings me to my second biggest problem: I hold people up to my standards. There's that saying with teachers and students, "They'll only do what's expected of them." I think it's funny how I set the bar high all of a sudden. Honestly, I think this bar is the minimum in terms of standards of decency and fairness. And if we can't hold each other accountable for the minimum, then we get stuck below the bar. That's not the type of world I fight for.
Now who said you couldn't evaluate yourself if you were too confident?
Black and white thinking? Think truth is something subjective? Take it to the judge because in the end, people judge you on your words and your ability to carry about your words with action.
With that being said, I've been seeing a lot of lack of accountability. We don't hold people accountable for their words. We don't hold people accountable for their actions. We don't hold people accountable for our expectations of them. We excuse discrepancies in their words, actions, and character. We say "They have their reasons," or "That's just the way they are," like that is supposed to make up for it.
I don't expect people to be perfect. But I do expect people to take some redeemable action in times of imperfection. It seems just natural to me. The ability to improve yourself is the will behind the human will. I'm also a strong believer in karma.
Richelle told me to "not be so confident about myself because it doesn't leave room for self-evaluation." What I think right now about it is that, being confident has taken me a lot of places. The last time I evaluated myself, my biggest problem was my ego. It was not that I was triflin' or a shift liar. My problem was that I was (too) proud of holding standards of honesty and consistency for myself. I put the parentheses in there because I'm only too proud for people who get intimidated by this type of pride. I never said that I was more than what I am. That would be lying. I said what I am and I am what I said. I wish I could be "not so confident" but then I wouldn't be confident in my standards, values, ethics, judgment. If I was not so confident, I couldn't hold people accountable for anything, which brings me to my second biggest problem: I hold people up to my standards. There's that saying with teachers and students, "They'll only do what's expected of them." I think it's funny how I set the bar high all of a sudden. Honestly, I think this bar is the minimum in terms of standards of decency and fairness. And if we can't hold each other accountable for the minimum, then we get stuck below the bar. That's not the type of world I fight for.
Now who said you couldn't evaluate yourself if you were too confident?
posted by Cas Ruffin | 8:33 PM
4 Comments:
holding people accountable does not require as much confidence in yourself as the ideals that you are actually fighting for. one cannot say they're growing if their beliefs do not change, and one's beliefs cannot change if they don't expose themselves to the vulnerability that they could be wrong. there's nothing wrong with being confident, in fact, that would be the ideal right? that every person believes in him/herself. there is just a disconnect when the standards by which you hold yourself (and others too) does not take notice the reasons why there are people not fulfilling those expectations. to put it a bit more frankly, we are just human, and at some point, you too will fall short of your own standards. what then can your confidence do when that happens? will that be the only time you will consider changing your standards? in that case, that would be very hypocritical.
of course some values are ingrained in our identity(ies), so believing in them means believing in yourself; fighting for them means fighting for yourself. all i wanted to point out was that one should not put themselves so high up there on that "bar" because it makes it dangerously hard to hear the voices of those who aren't up there with them. i certainly don't want the day to come when the only people you listen to are those who have "satisfied" your requirements. it closes you off to opportunities, to ideas, and most importantly, to others.
now if you can avoid doing that with the kind of confidence you're describing, then hey, more power to you. let's hope it stays that way. just be careful, it's easy to straddle between confidence and superiority. (if you're now tempted to argue for superiority, then i think you should read it again)
This is something that I posted on May 12, 2006. It is from the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
Fountainhead
"I often think that he's the only one of us who's achieved immortality. I don't mean in the sense of fame and I don't mean that he won't die some day. But he's living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict - and call it growth. At the end there's nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard - one can imagine him existing forever."
I guess we have to choose between "growth" and immortality. You set precedence with your words. You don't change them.
you know, it makes me wonder what kind of a person you turn out to be after a huge, unpredictable, and extremely personal accident. will you stand unchanged? will your world keep you immortalized? remember, immortality is still relative. and i'm not sure that staying constant leads to permanence. i wonder if you'll still have the same priorities once you step into/leave certain roles (e.g. become a father). i wonder what values you'll surrender in order to save more important ones.
your idea of "growth" (with quotation marks) seems like shedding of skin or changing of masks--basically, changing preferences for the sake of doing so. the kind of growth i was referring to was developing branches...blossoming. believe it or not, the leaves on the trees don't change colors just to look pretty. and yes, it's not immortal and it will die, but as long as its roots remain on the ground, it'll show just how much it stood the test of time...of reality...and its existence will be manifested in the seeds/fruits it bore. i don't know about you, but that's what i'd call immortality.
ok...well...i just sounded like a fortune cookie, but i hope that made sense.
if only you guys were rappers...
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