The following blog posts were written on my original blog over five years ago. This article is part of my 37 Life Lessons From My Youth Series. Note: I’ve matured a lot since then and my “voice” has changed since. Enjoy.
I used to be somewhat of an idealist. Although I didn’t expect the entire world to share my values, I held myself to a high standard of integrity
My morality was unwavering and invincible.
But as I grew and lived life, I learned that simply being good isn’t good enough.
However, I realize that my faith in my values wasn’t a mistake.
Beliefs are something you adopt to deal with the issues that you have.
I had my values because they were a baseline for myself. And my life was unpredictable.
People I trusted tossed me out on the streets. Toxic people would wreak havoc and point their finger at me. As if I were the bad guy.
If you deal with toxic people then you know they portray themselves as victims.
But that’s hardly ever the truth.
And for the longest time I was told that I was the bad guy.
I’m the bad guy, I’m the bad guy.
But I wasn’t.
I was a man of integrity. And I gave none of it away for a long time.
If you’re a genuinely good person – someone who honors honest, doesn’t cheat, and doesn’t steal. But you wonder why you always the short end of the stick? This is for you.
Here’s why being good isn’t good enough:
Nobody knows what values are. Use your eyes and ears. Does it seem like anyone cares about what’s right and wrong? It isn’t like it was back in the day. Nobody can give you the definition of integrity. And nobody understands that what’s done, can’t be undone. That YOLO thing destroyed a lot foresight way back when. So if you’re someone who cherishes values, you’ll find yourself to be incredibly righteous. And incredibly lonely.
Nobody cares. Women don’t care about values. We all know women who go after taken men. And it’s no surprise when a man cheats on his girlfriend/wife. Arguably, the only men who really care for integrity are those who have those high values themselves. Or people you’re in strict business with. Otherwise it’s a non-issue. If you’re cool to be around or have value to offer, nobody is going to care.
Nobody deserves you. When you’re a man of integrity you have incredible standards. That’s a great thing and all, but hardly anyone is good enough for you. Everybody will let you down because no one can live up to what you deem is a ‘good person’. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have high standards. It’s what separates you from them – the strong from the weak. But if you’re doing your best being good, and people do you dirty. Then you’re at a loss no matter what. Because they never deserved your best. And you never deserved their worst. All integrity does is make you feel like you’re better than everyone else via moral superiority. Which doesn’t matter if nobody cares in the first place.
The world doesn’t make sense.
If you’re being the most moralistic, good person that you can be, then it makes no sense when the world does you wrong.
For most of my life, people have been telling me that I’m the bad guy. But they were the ones dishing out abusive tactics on me.
It destroyed my self-worth, confidence, reality, and ability to self-trust.
Why were these things happening to me?
It wasn’t until I accepted a non-truth that these unfortunate events made sense: “I am the bad guy”
Bad things happen to bad people.
If I was still a good man of integrity, my world wouldn’t make any sense.
I would believe that I was never meant to have things go my way.
But now as a bad guy, at least if bad shit happens I can say that I deserved it.
At least the world makes sense.
Even if I wasn’t a bad person to begin with.
Final Checkpoint
I’m telling you guys this because life is unfair, and part of it being unfair is that bad people get away with things all the time.
You realize that ideas like karma and hell are only there to scare you from committing ‘sin’. But that’s just not reality.
It wasn’t until I read a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip-
That I made a huge realization:
The only reason to be good, is for the sake of being good.
Given the your situation, you may realize that being good for the sake of being good, just isn’t good enough.
And being good means nothing if you can’t be bad. Hell, being unable to do bad makes you weak.
So, what do you do? Well tell me, are you happy about always getting the short end of the stick?
No?
Then do whatever you want to do.
Get mad and howl “f*ck this shit“.
Drop those f*ckers who do you wrong.
Life is too short to shackle yourself to a bad situation.
So f*ck what’s good and take what’s yours.
Be selfish and do what’s best for yourself.
You won’t regret it.
See you next time,
- Rich
