In Between Right And Wrong, There’s Something Called Life
An extremely old article I wrote. I decided that I’ll attempt to read all of my old articles again to get a feel of what I was about. It’s a good exercise to motivate myself!
“There’s right, there’s wrong, and somewhere in between there’s life”
Now where did I get this awesome quote from? It is actually from, of all things, Family Guy.
It’s from an episode where Joe Swanson, a police officer decided not to arrest a dude who robbed a store when he found out that he was actually stealing food for his family.
Being Family Guy, the family was totally poor and shit, with the kids coughing blood and apparently dying and of course, wide-eyed!
The quote is really inspiring, because I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Just like a Robin Hood
You know how the Robin Hood effect is: Seemingly bad guy steals from the rich, but actually gives to the poor.
So the big question comes: Is Robin Hood wrong from stealing? Or right for being awesome since he bothered to give to the poor?
Maybe this is cliched to you, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just a fantasy folklore (or animated comedy TV series) where ideas of a perfect world of perfect humans understanding each other exist.
However you want to see it, I see it as this:
Don’t judge
Because the way I see it, everybody screws up from time to time. What you think may seem harmless or “not that bad” to you may seem like a humongous, catastrophic event in which people want to exact revenge on you.
Take a simple example, you crack a stupid joke for fun like, “Haha oh man you can’t drink for shit, you get drunk so easily”, but somehow this offends your friend.
Then you get offended because you are thinking why this guy can’t take a joke, when actually your friend perhaps had a traumatic childhood experience where his parents were alcoholics and they beat the shit out of him.
So who was right? Who was wrong?
Whatever the answer is, both have life.
Another point to take note is that since we live in this world, the law plays a huge part in everything. Thanks to the law, you can’t exactly do a lot things even though you think you are right.
Pew Pew! I am actually doing good!
Accept it as it is
We are human. I know we like to judge things. Hell I do it sometimes, especially if someone pisses me off. I am real stickler for manners, so if some idiot comes to me and shows me a complete lack of manners, I am like, “Who is this is rude piece of shit whose parents didn’t bring up right?”
Again, there is right, and there is wrong. That is actually the folly of people.
Leo Babauta of Zenhabits put it really clearly in his post talking about the same thing. To quote:
“When we see something we don’t like, we wish it could be different — we cry out for something better. That may be human nature, or perhaps it’s something that’s ingrained in our culture.”
Read the article, it’s super awesome.
So how can this whole concept of seeing “through” right and wrong help you? Easy.
- Don’t judge, as that may dangerously slide into wishful thinking
- Stop having so many expectations
- Accept others and try to understand, because you aren’t so perfect yourself.
- Or my favorite way, just focus your energy on yourself and not give a fuck about others, be it right or wrong, because face it, you are just one guy and you are not going to make things happen overnight.
Instead, do what you think is right, keep your conscience clear, make a positive change in yourself and impact this in your surroundings, because a little bit can go a long way.
So always, always respect the life on the conscience spectrum.
That is where you should act on and that is where you will learn the most about others and yourself.
