“Good” and “bad” are incomplete stories we tell ourselves | Heather Lanier | Day 48 – 100 Days 100 Thoughts

Hello Folks !!

How are you all? Whenever someone asks this, our default answer is good. We always strive to be on the positive side and we want good things to happen. But when something deviates from our plan we are jolted. We panic and lose everything. In this TED Talk, Heather Lanier talks about how Good and Bad are incomplete and not letting us be flexible in terms of our thoughts. Watch this talk to know more about her thoughts on reality and how it helps us in life if we see things beyond good and bad.

Welcome Back !!

In this talk, Heather starts with the story of a farmer who says “Good or bad, hard to say.” Maintaining this level of equanimity is the ultimate goal for me but I am nowhere getting there though. Still, I am in pursuit of that though and the journey is wonderful so far. Anyway, let’s get back to the original post. So Heather says the story of a farmer who says the words, “Good or bad, hard to say.” This lets him see beyond good and bad. By saying few things as good and bad, we are restricting our views. She says that the reality is fluid and we label the situation sooner. 

This made much more sense to me. At one point in time, when I applied for a job I was confident of getting that job as I felt I was the right fit. But I didn’t get the job, I got frustrated and was thinking a lot about the job alone. It took me some time to move on, then I took some time to introspect myself and able to relook at the whole issue in a different way. In hindsight, it all looks good only because I acted in this way, but if I acted differently then my initial thoughts of not getting the job is a bad thing would remain the same. The labeling of good or bad will always be incomplete. Something good at one point in time will not remain good always. The same goes for the situations we label as bad, this too shall pass. we prematurely label situations and make decisions based on our assumptions.

When we maintain equanimity in all situations it gives us an opportunity to see things beyond our perception. Being flexible in terms of labeling or jumping to conclusions will help us in deciding how to act. Rather than feeling miserable if I stayed indifferent towards the rejection I might have figured out what is the way forward much sooner. But the beauty of life is, even now it is good because my negative approach towards the loss helped me in dealing with rejection. This again proves that good and bad are incomplete and you need to give it some time to see the bigger picture.

This also holds the same for people. We either make the person Villain or “deitify” them to an extent that they cannot make any mistakes. We make people idols, deities, angels and be hypocrites and praise something they do and we make people evil, villains, and so on and diss them for the same thing we praised the so-called Good People. We are taking away their right to be humans. Let’s not do that anymore, let’s take things as it is without labeling and see people for whom they are without labeling. Let’s make the world a better place and achieve the level of equanimity the farmer in Heather’s story had.