#398 – What do you wish others that you wouldn't want for yourself?

How many times have you wished someone experienced something you wouldn't, in a million years, want for yourself?

You'd like to say, "zero!," but you know you can't.

If humans were truly moral and empathetic, we'd never want for others what we don't want for ourselves.

Problem is: we have this part of ourselves that's the survival instinct incarnate in the Ego. And the Ego isn't moral, and much less empathetic.

Your Ego is pure protection. Selfish as selfish gets. It doesn't care how many broken pieces it leaves behind in the china store, as long as they're not its china pieces.

If your Ego were POTUS, it'd sign self-serving executive orders, oblivious of what these meant for the rest of us.

If your Ego were a financial advisor, it wouldn't care how much money its clients lost, as long as its bonus and commissions stayed intact.

If your Ego were a physician, it'd prescribe patients whatever drugs and treatments made its work easier and more lucrative, regardless of the consequences for the patients.

But you're not your Ego. You're capable of empathy and understand that if something harms you, it probably harms others too.

The trick is to remember it every time you feel like someone "deserves" undesirable things because they behaved in a way that you didn't approve of.

What suffering will you stop prescribing that you'd never accept yourself?

Love,

Carolina