We're Only Human

By Renoliz ~

I got to thinking lately about how we are only human.

I remember a pair of gals I knew that lived in an apartment on the bottom row at the end of the building. They were not smart. In fact, they were pretty dumb. They had persistent diarrhea. It turns out that they were not rinsing the dishes after they washed them in soapy water. Once they were told about this necessity they did learn to rinse the dishes. However, they never seemed to get any smarter and had to learn everything about life one detail at a time. They simply did not have the ability to think ahead or transfer knowledge from one set of circumstances to another.

It was a real turning point in my life when I said to myself "I was born just like anyone else on this planet and I deserve as good a life as possible. I do not deserve to be abused, poor, cold, hungry,confused and such." Most of us are a bit smarter than that. Even so, our brains can play tricks on us. We can get stuck on a viewpoint. And sometimes for very good reasons. For instance, abused children see the world as dangerous and themselves as worthless. They have good reasons. They have to work at getting out of the mindset that they deserve to have less, be less and, in fact, they are less than the other people they see out in the big world.

It was a real turning point in my life when I said to myself "I was born just like anyone else on this planet and I deserve as good a life as possible. I do not deserve to be abused, poor, cold, hungry,confused and such." My brain had other ideas and I had to learn techniques to short circuit my brain. You see, my knowledge had grown but my brain wouldn't let go of its old patterns. I had to learn how to get over and get through the bad spells. I had to learn what you might call coping skills.

The amazing thing is that even if you are stuck on a really poor concept in your brain you can learn to over ride those concepts. I learned to say "Stop. I am not stupid. I am not garbage. I do not want to think like this. I may not be perfect but I have a place in this world and I deserve a good and decent place in this world. I will do something constructive instead of listening to those negative thoughts." And I would take a walk, bake a cake, work in the garden, do a craft project, write poetry or write in a journal or say something nice to myself. It took some time and some effort on my part but after awhile I stopped the loop and got a whole new viewpoint on myself. One that is more accurate by far.

More recently I had to overcome the concept of hell, in much the same way.

I am only human. I am doing the best I can. I do not have super powers. I am not rich. I am not famous. But I matter. I mean something to me. I mean something to a handful of other people in this world. That is enough. I have not changed the world but I have helped a few of my fellow travelers. That is enough.

If I can figure out the I and my fellow travelers are only human and doing the best they can then why can't all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful Bible God figure that out? Why the Draconian punishments from Bible God? You gotta wonder.

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