An interesting tradition

of the human condition

is that cognitive knowledge doesn’t always transition…

to the action, production, happiness and such.

Although I’ve found a new rendition,

through which those things come…

When I don’t really care as much.

The meaning behind this poem is two-fold.

First, have you ever been intellectually aware of how you should feel/act/behave/respond/achieve a goal, etc. in any given situation… and for who knows what reason… you still couldn’t yield the result you desired, or act the way you “knew” would get a different result?

Welcome to the paradox of the human condition. Sure, the first step to transforming any behavior is awareness that the behavior we have is not working to get the results we say we want… But just awareness and cognitive knowledge is NOT ENOUGH!

I read a quote recently, something to the effect of “just because we understand the human condition does not mean we can rise above it” meaning, just because a psychotherapist understands the chemical and psychological elements of depression…. does not automatically make that therapist exempt from depression!

So the first meaning of this poem is that traditionally, simply knowing “what to eat, how to spend your money, what type of person would be a good romantic partner for you”… does NOT always translate to those things actually happening! Who feels me?

Secondly, this poem closes with me saying that a new rendition may be that when I don’t care that much… meaning, I don’t care that I am not exempt from imperfection. I don’t care that I am gonna mess things up sometimes….

I can even embrace that I have a bit of a temper, I’m unorganized, I can be selfish, and I can be really forgetful… I can either

A. Choose to live in shame around that and beat myself up because the books say that by being like “how I am” I’ll never change/get what I want/have a good relationship, etc. or

B. Learn to relax into my imperfections and approach them not from a place of “ugh, I know I’m supposed to do it differently!” (which in turn keeps me stuck) but from a place of “hmm, I know this behavior seems to cause conflict, I wonder why it feels so comfortable to me to be defensive/angry/sensitive…

By doing this, I don’t make my behavior wrong, I simply get curious about it. And by being curious, it allows for me to CHOOSE to experiment with other behavior, and the result I am seeking will likely come to pass faster because I wasn’t forcing it.

Now, if you can wrap your head around relaxing into your human condition tendencies… hopefully you can also practice having it live in your body, because otherwise I just taught you something that is impossible to do without doing what I told you doesn’t work…

Let me know what “unwanted behavior” you are going to stop feeling shameful about!

Love,

TT