I was raised to believe that everything has an opposite. Good and evil, democrat and republican, young and old, death and taxes….oh wait…no that’s another subject entirely. Anywhoo….throughout my childhood I saw the negative way using opposites, or black and white thinking, could do. If a person did something it was either a good thing or if someone didn’t like it, then it had to be evil. If someone proposed a change it was either good or it was evil. It either had to be supported blindly or fought until it died. There was no room for anything other than the two polar opposites.
The one that really frustrated me and still does is that human beings are constantly being thrashed for not being good enough or having evil in them. Either you are going to heaven or you are going to hell. And these two things are necessarily intertwined. Because there is heaven there must be hell and we must constantly strive against our horrendously evil nature to strive for heaven, but can never reach it because we are tied to these opposites. There will always be both and we are constantly in a tug of war between them. To which I say “Expletive!” Fill in the one that works best for you in the situation, I believe there are many that will suffice.
One day I heard something that made me stop in wonder. Death is not the opposite of life, it is the opposite of Birth. There is no opposite to life. *applause* Life is not about the constant struggle between opposites as they are just a construct of our minds that can help or hinder us from understanding and living fully in this world. If we stop thrashing ourselves with these constructs of punishment and reward in an afterlife and start living and loving our lives in the now, loving ourselves fully for how amazing we are, and allowing that mistakes are part of it and not some evil plan, then life is full of wonder and joy.