Sometimes You're Not Supposed to Be Good.

I've been thinking a lot this week about this concept of being a good person/good girl, and how I don't think we're always meant to be good.

I think this idea of being a good person is understandable and has its place, because it touches on this human aspect of you that is empathetic, kind and understanding of other people's experiences. However, it's missing half the reality:

The world also includes darkness.

If you're constantly holding yourself to this impossible standard of goodness, you're going to be put in situations where you're taken advantage of because of it. Because you don't know how to say no. Because you can't handle the feeling of, "I'm not being this perfect version of myself that's meant to save the world and change the world," or you constantly push yourself to show up with high morality and high ethics because that's how it's "supposed to be."

But the world isn't always operating on that ideology of perfection. And so you get fucked over. You get used, drained and run over.

That's where this concept of being good can become limiting. Because it doesn't allow you to finally be like, "Fuck off. No. I need to take care of myself. I need to put me first."

And sometimes, yeah, that is a selfish decision.

And that's okay, because we're all selfish (more on that below)

I think the balance is in knowing when it is safe for your goodness to exist in its pure form and when you need discernment around whether that goodness should lead you.

It's on you to protect yourself. It's on you to figure out when to be open, vulnerable and good, and when to be firm, mean and a warrior.

It makes me think of that saying, "It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war." or it even has me thinking of the wilderness, where you have to know when to fight, when to draw blood and when to stay on top of the food chain.

I'm not trying to paint humans or humanity in a bad light. On the contrary, I'm devoted to understanding and normalizing humanness. And part of our humanness is our survival instinct, which includes this predatory energy within us that is there to dominate, take and be self-centered, and for good reason.

And the same thing goes for other people.

The more we make space for our own humanness and darkness, the less shocked and surprised we are when we see darkness existing in other people. Because we know it exists. We've acknowledged that it exists in us too.

If you're so uncomfortable with selfishness, aggression, domination or viciousness that you need to deny those parts in yourself, what happens when you come across someone who doesn't deny them at all? Someone who will take advantage of you, dominate you or put themselves first at your expense?

You have to know how to say no. You have to know how to protect yourself. And sometimes you have to know how to be vicious enough to fight against people who haven't learned how to have an integrated, healthy relationship with their own darkness.

Maybe that's part of what it means to be a warrior in a garden.

Imagine being lost in a jungle or stranded somewhere where your survival actually depended on you being harsher, more self-centered and more willing to fight. Most of us would understand why those parts of you would come forward there.

But for some reason we judge these parts of ourselves in our modern day because we think we've evolved past that survival. Yet we still have to navigate our own versions of the wilderness. We're building careers. We're navigating relationships. We're dealing with other people's hurt, desires, survival instincts and self-interest. The environment may look different, but darkness and "bad" energy are still things you're going to come across because they're things that exist in the world.

And you can't prepare yourself for that by denying that they exist in you too.

So sometimes you're not supposed to be good.

You are the only one who can truly know how much the environment around you allows for your goodness to exist. You can't indiscriminately lead with openness, generosity and vulnerability around people who will exploit those qualities.

Your goodness is not measured by your constant openness and kindness. That also doesn't mean letting your goodness die out. It means finding environments where your goodness can be expressed so that you don't lose it.

And I think maybe part of what I'm trying to touch on in this era of my life is: can I make peace with the parts of me that are fully human and predatory and "dark and bad"?

Can YOU?