I am the problem... Thank God.

Accountability can be tricky. It runs in contrast to our self preserving, ego protecting mechanisms that keep us believing we are the good guy in this story. There is something soul obliterating about having that belief dashed.

Photo by Jannes Jacobs on Unsplash

We cling to a desire, maybe even a need, for innocence. We believe that the only value we have to society comes from us being relatively clean in the eyes of others. Despite living in a secular world, we are still motivated to be free of sin. We have all sorts of defences and strategies to misdirect and over perform so that no one will ever see our warts and our scars.

But sometimes, despite our best efforts, our sin is discovered and the narrative crumbles. “I am not the hero in this story.” Nobody likes me. Nobody looks up to me. Nobody is rooting for me.

We want so badly to blame our misfortune on someone else. Maybe a really judgmental person instigated your downfall. Or maybe your parents were too strict or not strict enough or didn’t go to enough baseball games which led you to making the mistake that ruined your life. Maybe the government is too this, or schools are too that. We want to find anyone to blame but ourselves but as long as we do so we miss out on the opportunity to be accountable. To be guilty. To be wrong. To be a sinner.

As terrible as it feels, it can eventually be one of the most freeing events of your life. Losing your place as the virtuous hero releases you from unrealistic social expectations and pressures. If you don’t have to save the day then maybe you can spend time finding and saving your true self.

Legendary comic Dave Chappelle recounts a story of the first time he “bombed”. He looked at the crowd and saw people of all ages, races, and genders booing him as if he had just defecated on stage. Streams of disdain were thrown upon him and he realized… “this ain’t that bad.” He experienced a brief but incredibly hostile social threat and he survived it. If that’s the worst that can happen, then I guess I have nothing to fear.

I don’t want to minimize public mobbings or shamings but once you have experienced it you can reload and face life with a curiously mangled sense of confidence. I got mauled but I survived it. And surviving it has now become one of my most uniquely valuable characteristics.

Our egos are fragile but our spirit is antifragile. This is a term coined by Nassim Taleb that references anything that gains from disorder or chaos. Anything that grows stronger in the face of resistance.

Pema Chodron wrote that one benefit of being decimated is that it exposed the part of us that is indestructible. It’s like the immature, ego driven desire to be innocent has been burned off of us so that we can now develop more genuine strength and character.

And that, makes us the hero in our story.