Many people have addictions of one type or another.
Most people know, even if they won’t admit it to others, if they are addicted to something.
It affects their daily life, their work, their free time and their state of mind.
I’ve got a bit of an addiction also.
I’m trying to break it.
I like reading comments on articles from e-news sites.
I used to be very addicted to my righteousness and telling others how to live their lives.
It seems most of the people posting comments on these sites also feel the same way.
Let me be specific, they don’t feel the same way I do about how someone should live their life, just that the person commenting knows better than the person living their own life how to live it.
It is a confusing sentence but that is what it is. I’m okay with that.
I’ve been attempting to break this habit with very little success because I haven’t put a lot of effort into it.
Mostly I look at the comments and think about how serious, mean and judgmental they are and then ignore them.
I’ve been wondering, in the last week or so, why I even look at them.
I think it is an addiction to the self-righteousness that I had before dying a slow death.
I can remind myself that I’m, mostly, not like that anymore and also feel somewhat superior to the people that are commenting.
This is, actually, rather self-serving and yet very destructive.
I’ve decided not to read the comments for the rest of the month and note whether I feel more positive or less positive about my state of mind or if there is no change at all.
Life is an experiment and I’m going to run one on myself.
I’ve also noticed, on social media sites that I’m a part of, that people seem to want to pull me back into the persona I was before I made this change to be more positive.
It is another test of my strength against the addiction of hubris and self-righteousness that I have learned to check myself on and agree with them and then move on.
Agreeing with someone, and finding even a tiniest bit of truth in what they are saying, tends to negate almost any argument.
When I first started praticing this about 7 years ago I found this quite difficult to do in the moment.
I learned a very simple way to set my mind to agree with someone from my supervisor, Brac Selph.
I don’t think he even realized he was doing this, but anytime someone said anything to him in our group supervision, he would immediately answer with, “You’re right.”
I noticed this and started doing it also since when I tell someone, “You’re right” I then choose to find something to agree with them and that reduces their desire to argue with me because we have just agreed.
You may choose not to do this, or you may think I’m incorrect in my assumptions, and you might be right, but for me, it just makes sense.
I find it is not always easy, especially with someone I tend to disagree with strongly, but it saves me energy, time and other problems that come up because of disagreements.
Also, if the other person is incredibly argumentative, they tend to get tired of talking to me because I don’t give them much to argue with. They go find other people that fit their way of thinking and being.
That used to be me. I decided on New Year’s Day to try to be more positive, constructive and caring when I comment or speak to people.
I think I’ve succeeded greatly.
And this is just one more step in my journey towards a more fulfilling and wonderful life.
Feel free to join along when, and if, you decide to come along!