Already Good Enough

The second-best thing I ever learned was that none of us—me, you, anyone—has to do anything to prove we are good enough, that every person is already good enough, already worthy, already lovable, already worthy of love.

I could just stop this post right there. If you can take that in, reflect on it, accept it, and believe it, about everyone around you and also about yourself, in most cases (in my experience) you will just have undergone a life-altering revolution in your views on everything and everyone.

Most of the time, however, we are so conditioned to believe otherwise, that accepting it takes some time, and even some convincing.

The best book I ever read, explained this more thoroughly than I could here. One part of that explanation talked about self-righteous people and perfectionists. A self-righteous person, the author said, is someone who does everything to show and prove to others that s/he is good enough. A perfectionist person, is someone who does everything to show and prove to himself or to herself that s/he is good enough.

Ouch.

What is worse, though, is that our attempts to prove ourselves worthy arise from our own deeply felt belief that we are not yet good enough. We think we have to prove our worth. We think we have to do more to earn respect, acceptance, and love. What could be more sad? What could be more false?

In the same book, the author makes the further point that while each of us is frantically scrambling to earn acceptance from others, neurotically checking every so often to see if we are accepted yet, the others from whom we are hoping for acceptance are, themselves, scrambling to earn acceptance from us! As he puts it, we have appointed them to our jury, but their verdict on us never comes in, because they are too busy waiting for our verdict on them.

The truth is, you do not have to be perfect to be worthy or to be lovable. A child is lovable just as it is. So is a puppy. A grown person. A dog. What makes it so hard to believe that you are worthy and lovable just as you are, too?

Maybe there is no answer to that. Maybe there is. People can be cruel. Our own thoughts can be, too. More on both of those topics later. In the meantime, just know that a person's cruelty has almost everything to do with them (their own suffering), and very little, nothing really, to do with you. As to your own thoughts, this is what I tell people about that: There are already enough people in the world who will criticize you or put you down; there is no need for you to be doing it, too. If anyone should be on your side, encouraging you, supporting you, being your cheerleader, it should be you!!

You do not need to prove anything. You are already good enough, already worthy of love.

As is.