Human Nature

 

There are many subjects running through my head this month. I am so filled with experiences and observations of interactions between people that I have to reflect upon how I am interacting with the people around me. This has caused me to recognize how much any person is defined by the expectations, actions, values and morals of the people they surround themselves with.

I keep coming back to 3 observations of our human nature. Without any conscious thought humans will act in certain ways: we will gravitate towards a group of people to validate our beliefs, we will compete for the alpha position and we will do it in the easiest way. Take our desire for companionship. Who we surround ourselves with, or who we are attracted to validates what we believe our own self to be. Negativity, drama and whining from your circle of friends will validate and bring that behavior to the forefront in your life. Be wary of friends who like to stir up the drama, your life will always take a turn for their attention. Positive action, personal accountability and inner growth in your circle of friends will help you grow too. When you are in your own crisis, friends like this want to see you grow and are excited when you do.

Taking the high road of healing and growth is for sure not the easy road and human nature wants to see us do things the easy way. It’s so much easier to blame others for our failings and mistakes. Your fears want you to fail and they want others around you to fail too, because if they succeed then maybe you should get off your keester and succeed too. Our fears want us to stay inactive and in a nice little unchallenging protective cell, because when we come out of it, someone may want to compete. At our base nature, competition feels like fight or flight and unchecked can feel like kill or be killed.

Once the ungoverned ego gets hold of the competitive nature, kill or be killed can take over even the best of intentions. Being alpha, top dog, the first to succeed can become consuming, even to the point of defaming or harming another. The justifications that are created to validate this behavior are amazing, creative and a bit crazy. I know for myself, there have been many times I wanted to take another person or entity down, “How dare they compete with me, the mistress of candles!” It took a lot of forgiveness, not of the other party, but of me to move past this need to destroy my competition. Forgiveness of your own shortcomings and mistakes allow the ego to relax out of the offensive mode and get you back into your own personal growth.

When discussing all of these ideas with Patty (my partner and wonder twin), she referenced her current read, A Short Story of Nearly Everything By Bill Bryson. In this book, Mr. Bryson tells us how in the early stages of scientific discovery it was kill or be killed. Where scientist would sabotage each other to ensure they would be the first to discover a new element. Where groups of scientists would discredit and even kill who they considered to be outsiders to ensure their notoriety. This goes back through all of history and is nothing new today in our small spiritual communities. One would think grown-ups of a scientific mind would be above this, but egos unchecked can still override the more analytical mind.

Even in our present day new-age spiritual communities, we experience these three points of human nature. We compete over who is more connected to God, creator, spirit. We circle ourselves with people who will validate and rarely challenge our beliefs. We will look for and create shortcuts, the instant wisdom and the instant manifestations. If we know that these natures exist everywhere, we can recognize and avoid them in ourselves and in others. We can forgive ourselves and others when we stumble. We can learn how to overcome these things and evolve.

Take stock in your own human nature, and don’t take personally the nature of others. Really, we are all just 12 years old inside. We are all scared about what others think, we all feel awkward in our skins and we all want dessert before dinner.

 

Jacki Smith

President & Enchantress
Coventry Creations
Type 40 Sales