The courage to admit you’re not good - by Mbimenyuy Marius Kongnso

Our notion of morality since childhood has been that people who are outwardly proud, arrogant, angry, aggressive, greedy, or pompous are “bad.” And because of this, we grow up trying to avoid being perceived as bad, often focusing more on managing appearances than actually becoming less harmful.One thing that isn’t talked about enough is that we’re born with both good and evil tendencies. The labels of “good” and “bad” are mostly societal. Silencing the potential for darkness that comes to us naturally is extremely difficult, because it requires looking straight at all the ways we aren’t as good as we want to believe. But since society shames and punishes “badness,” most people don’t want to face it in themselves. So they push it down, bury it, and it ends up operating unconsciously.It’s interesting that everyone complains about how bad people are, yet you rarely meet someone who thinks they are bad. Why? As Carl Jung said, “If you do not make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” When we shove our dark parts deeper and deeper out of awareness, they don’t disappear- they find indirect, manipulative, or distorted ways to manifest.This is why people who look extremely polished on the outside can be the most dangerous. You see this in highly religious people, in politics, in NGOs, in churches- people who appear morally upright yet have disturbing things happening behind the scenes. The more someone tries to look flawless, the more carefully you should pay attention to the darkness they’ve buried. And the most troubling part is that such people can do enormous harm while feeling no guilt, because they’ve rationalized everything. They can cause damage and never take responsibility for any of it.Honestly, I have far more respect for the openly “bad” person. At least you can see their vices from a distance. You can deal with them directly. In a strange way, they’re often better people than the ones who hide everything behind a clean persona.The only way to actually become good is to face the darkness in yourself. When you see it clearly, it starts to dissolve, and you gain the courage to be proud if you need to be, to be angry if you need to be, to be greedy if you need to be. But the people who truly go to the root of their own darkness rarely act out those impulses. They’ve looked into the deeper recesses of their being and realized how foolish those urges are when they take over. They have them under voluntary control. Have the courage to admit that you’re not so good, so that the you have the opportunity to see how bad you are and then have it under control.Doing your shadow work is the real gateway to morality.

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