It’s wonderful to be affirmed by others. We want people to say and think that we are valuable and worthy of love and respect. When we treat others with kindness and respect they enjoy it. You know they do.
There is an idea that is subversive and radical (and pretty old, not new at all). The idea is this:
Each person, no matter who they are, where or how they were born, what they look like, or what they have done is inherently valuable and worthy of kindness and respect.
Each person is inherently valuable. Not just the elect, the deserving, but everyone. The snitch, the sneak, the pickpocket, the liar, the manipulator, the drug addict.
Imagine a diamond that is worth a million dollars. Diamond is the hardest substance on earth. Almost nothing can destroy it or make it lose value. You could throw it away in a sewer and even down there it is still worth a million dollars. Its value hasn’t changed in the slightest. If you lift it out of the sewer and clean it up you haven’t added one penny to its value.
So what’s up with that? And why do you not treat yourself like that? If you are a million-dollar diamond, why does (almost) nobody act toward you like that, talk to you like that?
The first question is answered by the second one. We treat ourselves badly because people around us tell us we are bad.
It’s an easy mistake. All around us, all our lives, we are told stories about an evil-doer who does evil things and then the hero fights them and either gets vengeance or justice. The evil-doer deserves nothing but death or punishment for their crimes. One way or another they are removed from the human race.
This is a children’s story. It doesn’t matter that a lot of grown-ups believe it. It gets enacted every day, over and over in our society but it is always fiction. Any of the actors could play any of the parts because each of them is a million-dollar diamond.
Any of the actors in this movie could have been born rich, healthy people. And any one of them could have been born to mentally ill, addicted parents. Anyone could have played any part.
The story of good and evil is strong in us as a human race. But that story is just for a fun evening’s entertainment. (Spoilers: Wonder Woman wasn’t a real person.)
The real story is that a million-dollar diamond can wind up in a deep hole of its own making. It can be at the bottom of a pit filled with bad luck, bad ideas, and bad choices.
To dig that diamond out and clean it off is worth the work. Each person is inherently valuable and worthy of kindness and respect. Kindness and respect to yourself (yes, you) and others, (yes even those) will bring those diamonds into the light where they can shine.
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