Bad Behavior

Someone wrote on Facebook:

“Behaviors are neither good nor bad. They just ‘are,’ and we choose them consciously or not.”

It is SO tempting to believe that there are no “bad” behaviors. We WANT to believe this, but only because we already believe the lie that if we behave in a “bad” way, WE are bad.

So let’s start over. Let’s assume that we’re NOT bad, but when we’re in pain, we DO behave in ways that are unloving, hateful, destructive, and unhappy—all of which would certainly qualify as not particularly wise or good, eh? So why quibble with words, just to make ourselves feel better? When we’re not loving or happy, our behaviors ARE BAD—“bad” in the sense that they don’t work.

If a bulb burns out in a lamp, we point to it and say it’s a “bad” bulb. It’s not evil. We don’t need to get angry about it, or feel guilty about it, nor do we need to throw away the lamp. It’s bad because it doesn’t work, so we need to do something with it. We could fix the filament—ridiculously complicated—or just replace the bad bulb.

Same with our bad behaviors. Anything unloving—anger, resentment, attacking, lying, and more—simply does not work and needs to be replaced with love. We need to alter our perspectives—what we believe to be true—after which our feelings and behaviors simply change naturally.

We don’t need to change WHO we are. We’re not bad. But our “bad” behaviors do grossly interfere with seeing and expressing who we are, so let’s get rid of them.