Doing Things Badly or Grand Fraud

If you're going to do something badly, just don't bother doing it. It's just another form of a death wish to do a bad job, it's like you're not even participating, or only unwillingly. It carries with it a whole mentality of manipulative action and then outward blame because it reeks of "it's not my fault" and "I'm going to make you pay." If you are not going to be present in whatever it is you're doing, why bother doing it in the first place?

This duplicity of word and action is just a cheap way of not taking responsibility and it doesn't serve. You may feel - for a brief moment - as if you are vastly superior than the rest of the human race, but how lonely is that and where does it get you? You are still doing those things you don't want to be doing, you're doing them poorly, no one likes you because you're blaming them for having to be there doing them and for doing them poorly, and you still have to keep doing them.

Honesty and truth are really the only tools there are for any kind of life worth living. Why live half a life? If you really feel like you don't want to be doing something - then own it; go away and don't do it. If you really think this job is beneath you, strive to be worthy of a better job. If you really think there are better places to be, go to them. If you really feel you are so superior to everyone else, let your actions show it. Because otherwise - it's Grand Fraud and the person it hurts most is yourself.

If you're going to do something - do it right. Or don't bother. Doing it badly is like only being willing to live halfway, only being willing to breathe halfway, and if you're only living and breathing halfway, the rest of you is dead.

I wrote this with my nephew in mind who would probably not be caught dead reading it - but I'm going to post it anyway. I am sure that everyone knows people like this. Because it's so much to the one side it emphasizes the other - conscious living. We have a choice whenever we do anything and everything to do it right or not. It is a gentle reminder that there is much to be gained from doing things all the way, to live fully, breathe deeply, really engage in life and that there is something very precious in being fully present. Washing the dishes can be a holy experience, any job can become a service done in joy and returning manifold joy to you, every moment of life becomes the most precious gift - wow that is an amazing life. And, it's just a choice.

Choose well.

Blessings.
- Darshan

© 2009 Darshan F Jessop