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Most humans live with this internal judgement of their lives, deciding and enforcing where they exist on the societal totem pole. There are hundreds of daily sub conscious judgements placating our souls in our interactions making these perceptions our reality.
If you take a day and stop and think about it, bring it up to your consciousness you will find it weirdly comforting as it's been a pattern of a lifetime for most of us. However, you will also find that the internal motivations influencing these promptings are pretty shallow, selfish and generally jerkish of us.
People we perceive as more valuable then us we will engage differently then people we perceive as less valuable. These things are generally selfishly motivated causing us to control our relationships preventing us from freely giving. When we do offer freely of ourselves its not actually free, its often intrinsically motivated as we think we can receive something in return.
I believe Jesus' ability to be fully present, offering Himself to others is what made Him such a polarizing figure. Very few people will actually read the Gospels to see Jesus for themselves, rather they will take on the perception of Him as the ultimate humanitarian. Or offer some glib stereotype about Jesus based on the social setting they are in with the goal of fitting into their comfortable place on the totem pole.
As I have opened the Gospel's for myself to look at Jesus, trying to read into His internal reality, He is constantly bashing the garbage social standards of His day. He see's them holding people in a counterfeit mold of living, and smashes the perceptions. Look at how He treated women, the sick, and the religious heads.
Think about what influences you in any given situation at work, or with your family and friends. Allow yourself to be conscious of your motivation. What's the why?
The last few weeks have been shocking for me. Circumstances have driven some of my internal motivations of selfishness into a crash course of reality.
The Summer has been fantastic, pretty low key, lots of planning at work and lots of time at the pool with the fam. My wife and I had been dialoguing about doing a bathroom remodel and getting a new car for awhile - with minimal decision making dialogue - until for whatever reason two weeks ago in back to back days we put our car on the market and initiated the demolition process.
We also had a two week vacation starting in a week, the first half with which we were staying in town, the second half of which we were taking an extended road trip. So, if we sold the car, then buying a new one was not optional.
On day two of this little shin dig, smoke in the enigne, and mold in the basement bathroom of my rental property slowed down my excitement. Turns out my car needed the engine taken apart to replace cylinder heads, and my upstairs bathroom at my rental property was leaking into the floor of my basement.
Both of these are manageable standing alone. However, we are going on a road trip next week (that we do not have a car for), and while we are gone some new people are moving into our basement that currently has a bathroom with no shower, toilet, vanity or floor.
So Mild stress in the household had my internal motivation surfacing.
The circumstances continued to unfold allowing more of my internal world to surface.
My Father-in-law who is a brilliant mechanic 'decided' to fly 1000 miles for 36 hours to show me how to rip apart an engine.
As the week wore on, we got our car back in better shape then it started, sold it, got the rental property taken care of, and the bathroom remodel farther along then it was (still working on that one)...However, we were leaving in a few days with no car...So some of our dearest friends showed up with a check for over $6000. Just gave it to us, said they invited our community to rally around our new car.
Sounds astonishing. Because it is. "Heres a check, so you can get a great car!"
Well, we found one. And are currently staying at a posh airbnb that we didn't pay for, and my selfish internal motivation is being exposed.
In reality, I am just trying to sabotage myself to enforce my place in the totem pole. People being nice to me makes me feel like they are above me, so I in turn have to show them with my 'gratitude' that I am actually higher then my need dictated. Which sounds crazy, and is if you think about it.
Instead, I am going to make a powerful choice to be thankful, and not allow these circumstances to sabotage me or my relationships. Rather just look people in the face and be genuine, present and engaged. At the end of the day people choose to be generous with my family because they love us, and my reaction can only be to continue to freely engage those relationships with no strings attached.
So...Praise God...life continues
Check your internal motivations today...continue to grow as a human being, our world changes one life at a time...do your best to make it better.
And to everyone that donated to the cause, that has made courageous choices to love my family thank you - I am grateful not only for the sweet ride, but for helping expose my own selfishness.
Live big today - dominate life
