SOLICITED ADVICE #3: Recognizing achievement?
Send your questions to askingsherry@gmail.com and each week I'll pick one to answer here:
Writing questions humbly shared for consideration
In your life, what lie is most absurd?
If you achieved your goals, how would you recognize it?
What is your darkest most fearful shadow?
Bonus: If you (very briefly) had the gift of absolute clarity of communication, who would you thank?
J. Y.
I couldn’t pick one because these are all so good. (#2 is the hardest.)
Question #1: the most absurd lie is “people don’t change”. That belief is a defense mechanism, I think people who hold that worldview actually want to believe something like “people aren’t allowed to change”:
If you fix someone’s character in your mind (e.g., “Sherry is selfish and she’ll never change”) you get to freeze the narrative. You don’t have to update your expectations, risk forgiving them, or risk being wrong about who they are. It’s safer to trap people in the version that hurt or disappointed you. If we weren’t capable of change, we wouldn’t need forgiveness, humility, or agency. Yet, we do.
The lizard brain likes to predict the future using existing data, but our enlightened selves know that every sleep is a mini death and every morning is a mini resurrection, each day is a new life where we get to try again. So, let people try (you let, they try).
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Question #2:
People like to say “this too shall pass” about bad things, but we forget that it also applies to good things. You are here, for now.