Reminding Myself that Self-Righteousness Is Not Helpful

Excerpt

Speaking of negative attitudes, even intending to cultivate equanimity and spaciousness, I notice how easy it is to fall into self-righteousness and indignation as soon as I start thinking about the things I don’t like in the world, especially when they seem to stem from either the activity or the inactivity of human beings. I catch myself “personalizing” something that is actually much bigger than individual villains, even though specific persons are playing various, sometimes awful, roles in what is happening at any one moment. What come to mind are the very real injustices, social inequities, and exploitation of huge numbers of people and natural resources, often disguised through the mis-appropriation and corruption of language so that it is hard to discern what is really going on because words themselves have become a kind of surreal newspeak; the boundless harm that comes from waging endless wars to achieve dubious ends by nefarious means; the sense that those in various positions of power and responsibility are often willing to lie outright, dissimilate, fabricate, coerce, manipulate, deny, cover up, buy allegiances, rationalize whatever they are doing, and do whatever they feel necessary to achieve those dubious ends; the increasingly enormous concentration of power and influence and wealth in the hands of a small number of people and of multinational corporate giants who often act as if their interests in power and growth and profits are above all others’ and even above the law; to name just a few. …