Beyond Praise and Blame

 If we look closely at praise and blame, these two things are part and parcel of the same thing. They refer to the habit of believing that someone is solely responsible for our happiness, fame and success. Just as blaming others (and yourself) can place undue burdens on them, so also too much praise can have a similar effect, in the sense of over-inflating the sense of agency. In reality, what happens to us is often the result of interlocking and complex interplay of forces. Why would we want to place the burden on one single person for the many things that could and do happen to us? This way is the opposite of compassion. 

  Tomorrow, we have a big election south of the border. Does it mean anything to me? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. But the point is that catastrophizing about who will be a nation's leader is not a very wise approach. Leaders only represent a great many people who make up a political party, not to mention the diverse populations who choose to support those leaders. Even when one "wins", does that person win all the time and for every occasion? Leadership requires continuous maintenance and support, so it would be a little unwise to think that our lives depend on the outcome of a single day. This would be taking away our day to day responsibility to be in the moment, by thinking someone has way more power than us than they actually do.

   People often exist as images in our mind. We trigger those images through recollections, memories and even narratives about what was done to us in the past. Do those images really exist outside of our thoughts, recollections and stories? They certainly have an influence on how we feel, but we can never say they have an objective life of their own. I only make these thoughts powerful by continuing to indulge them and giving them a value that they can only have through the mind. In fact, we can never hold anyone responsible for our happiness or sadness, madness or gladness. This is because we determine how we see people, just as we determine our attitudes toward people.