I felt like pulling out Meditations tonight because it felt right.
I opened up to this quote: "And why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice!”
How special must we think we are that we believe our feelings matter to more than just ourselves. They don’t. And really, they probably shouldn’t. Hear me out.
The feelings you and I have are ours; nobody else but us can feel them. Others can interpret how we might feel, but that’s not the same as having knowledge of exactly what we feel.
It might be our feelings and our interpretation of the world that causes us to act. It’s possible that we we are not motivated to act because we have knowledge of exactly how someone feels.
Our feelings shape our interpretation of the world - our story. Others steal our stories when they tell us they “understand what we’re going through.” How can they when they are not us?
Our feelings only matter to ourselves. That said…
When we see someone in pain or frustrated because they could not create their intended outcomes, we can help. We can see ourselves as one that serves others helping them to make a better life. When we see that story for ourselves we are motivated to help.
When we help others create the outcomes they want, we are rewarded with an intense feeling of accomplishment and goodness. That said, the person we helped does not truly care about our feeling of accomplishment, that feeling only matters to us.
