The Mission Is The Goal: Not Our Insecurities & Image of Ourselves

When people watch a movie and say, “Man, that character was great,” we don’t have to break it down or explain it to anyone. We instinctively know what someone society admires looks and acts like. We feel it. So, the way I see it, that’s the baseline for the right to like ourselves when we look in the mirror. It is that high standard on screen but in our personal lives as the starting point: not an inch lower in quality. We have to ask ourselves if we are that kind of person, the one our family and children look to onscreen and want to be like—and then you hold yourself to it in every situation on every day. There are no excuses for ourselves when we’re not. The person we must be the hardest on is ourselves. We try to saturate our lives with the values that give other people hope, and we get lost in being that person so much that we forget "we" exist ourselves from time to time. We live by this not when it’s convenient, and not only when other people are watching. It is instead who we are, or who we work to become with no rest.

One of the problems with high standards (I don't think they are high) is that people who don’t hold themselves accountable find them threatening because it impacts their positive self-image negatively, and it shows them a reflection of what the weakness they are deliberately avoiding in themselves. It brings out shame. But honestly, who cares about the self-image and self-esteem of people who are protecting their feelings by ignoring their blindsides and making excuses for themselves? They don't deserve mindfulness because of their lack of self-honesty and lack of honorable traits. We are not honorable if we are not living by the above code, and only the honorable deserve anything less than knife-hands when dealing with them.

That other personality are not the ones pushing the world morally forward. We can all picture the type of person who needs success just to like what they see in the mirror. Everything for them is about self-approval. They don’t think about others, don’t try to understand a different perspective. It’s alien to them. They never grow beyond the need to validate themselves. And a lot of these personalities are the ones who end up in power. Power becomes a comfort system for their ego — a stage where they can pretend the world revolves around their fragile identity. Sure, some may do good things accidentally or as a side effect. But they could still do those good things without the narcissism—if we simply held them to a higher standard. A little discomfort won’t kill them. In fact, it might be the only thing that saves them. This is what I demand from myself. It is not too much to ask of others.

When power is almost exclusively used to maximize the comfort of those who have is evidence of weakness and pathetic rot in society. It is weakness. It is pathetic. The only people worthy of power are those who use it to move things forward for everyone else. All that is weak is an invitation and moral right to make broken. So break those kind of people in half in front of them and those around them. The benefits we get from doing the mission—wealth, praise, whatever—are byproducts, not the point. We are not the goal. The mission is.