Divided loyalties – Speaking truth to myself

Life gives the contrast for appreciation, often it just requires being still, engaged in active listening. Being willing to accept what is given, regardless if it is what we want at the time.

Being loyal to yourself is a concept that constantly gets lost in the realm of the esoteric. Sadly, like many of the lessons of life we often make it more complicated than it needs to be.

I can’t speak for other 6 billion inhabitants of Earth, but I confess to being guilty as charged. On so many occasions at different times of my life, oh how I’ve been guilty.

I’m not trying to dodge my complicity in the crime, but it has been the contagious “virus like” nature of complacency, which has lead me to settle for just enough to get by at the aforementioned times.

What is most telling about complacency is not the fruit sown by it, but it is this. I was cognizant of what was happening, but powerless to impede its hold over me.

By not pushing the envelope, by failing to demand that much more from myself, I was a traitor, for the worst reason of all. Simply because I felt that the outcome wasn’t predefined or guaranteed to be easy.

For me the worse crime is being disloyal to yourself, yet having loyalty to that which does not have your best interests at heart. This misplaced loyalty can be projected in any numbers of ways, take your pick.

Considering the price paid by traitors in antiquity, I should consider myself lucky.

I am inclined to believe that the privilege of being able to reflect on my missteps and draw a line in the sand to rebuke my past disloyalty.

Is something more consequential than luck, greater than mere happenstance.

I chalk it up to divine intervention and experience has demonstrated, to me. That this is the purest form of loyalty that I can ever hope to harbor and for that, I am compelled not to waste the power that was selflessly granted.