In my last post, I mentioned that the idea I spoke about could branch off towards a number of different things I would like to discuss here, and today I’m going to talk about one of those things. No, this one does not come with a personal traumatic story, you can relax.

Today, I want to talk about how sometimes, processing our experiences can warp our field of view and cause us to manipulate ourselves into holding our faith in ideas that are false and unhealthy.

In one way or another, our experiences from the present or the past help to sculpt our outlook and behaviour in the future. First, we have an experience, then we learn from it, then we recognize patterns going forward and we adapt accordingly. Pretty human.

An issue can develop, however, when we take the wrong lesson away from the experience.

Referring back to my last post, “I’m Not The Bad Guy,” I spoke about how sometimes, we callous ourselves in a way that is meant to be a defense against pain in the future. That post primarily focused on the idea that we can build up a facade to mask our vulnerability and adapt to become impenetrable to hurt. Today, I want to talk about a different way we can callus ourselves. That is: blaming a whole.

A seemingly prominent example of this is “one man hurt me, therefore, all men are bad.” Of course, there are many different examples of this occurring in many varying degrees, but I think this particular example is most widely recognized and most commonly heard of.

I think that the root of developing this way of thinking stems from the desire to easily sort between good and bad to make navigating forward easier. The framing is attractive because it lends the illusion that untangling your pain will be easier. I think that inherently, when we experience horrible things, we can’t help but wonder if some of the fault of the occurrence lays on us; within our personality or our morals or the way we carry ourselves. Even when it is blatantly apparent that we carry no fault, it can be difficult not to fall down that rabbit hole. Casting blame as a blanket seems like it would eliminate that fear of feeling at fault; it’s no longer you vs the individual, it’s you experiencing the conditions of the group. “That person” becomes “they” and if “they” are all “like that,” then you cannot possibly be at fault. If “all men cheat,” then it no longer matters if she was prettier or more worthy, it was a fault baked into his identity before she was even around, right?

As you begin to accept that sort of idealism as truth, it starts to feel like there’s an enemy that you must be prepared to defend yourself against. You begin to make assumptions about their character based on your belief system before you even know the first thing about them and you write them off, or you start to aggressively push them away or shut them out before they can damage you.

That is how this belief system becomes a callus. You close yourself off to an abundance of opportunity because of one event. Just like altering your personality to make a shield, adhering to this kind of belief builds a wall.

The example I’ve used is a broad stroke, but like I mentioned, there are a great many ways this can occur, and in varying degrees, which means you may be adhering to this kind of belief system without being consciously aware of it. I think the best way to realize whether or or not this is a belief system you rely on is to consider this:

Good is not the exception to the rule.

When your belief system is a blanket like this one, you’re going to stumble upon exceptions. “All men are bad.” …except your dad, or your cousin, or your teacher, or your friend from high school. Whether it’s immediately or not, you’re going to know someone who is an exception to your belief system, it’s inevitable. When you believe that good is the exception to the rule of your belief system, cracks will form in the foundation of that belief. It becomes convoluted to explain why someone is good, despite your belief saying they shouldn’t be, and that is because your belief was only developed to cater to your opinions of your own experiences.

The truth is that all people want to be good. Yes, even the ones that claim they don’t want, or care to be – that’s just another kind of callus.

All people want to be good, and simultaneously, assholes exist. Assholes exist everywhere and they do not conform to a gender or a skin tone or a position or a title. There is always going to be a next person to let you down and it’s not going to be because they fit the description of those you cast as bad. That’s the truth. Anyone has the capacity to hurt you, and for that reason, there will always be a sense of risk when you decide to let someone new in.

Anyone has the capacity to hurt you but just because the last one did, that does not mean the next one will. What I mean to say is don’t let that risk be scary. Expecting pain is just setting yourself up for failure. Everyone wants to be good which means for the most part, no one wants to hurt you. Inflicting pain is usually a defence mechanism set up by someone who has been growing calluses of their own, and remembering this makes navigating and forming healthier relationships easier to understand.

By adhering to an idea that a particular kind of person is evil, you are limiting yourself. This is a surefire way for you to become static and hard; this kind of opinion will stunt your growth.

It’s healthier to deal with every new person, every confrontation, and every experience on an individual basis. Everything that happens next is separate from everything that has happened before. The lessons you should take from your past are not what category of person you should avoid, rather, how it’s best for you to heal, recover and grow from a type of experience. In other words, know the kinds of calluses that you are not fit to manage, not the kinds of people.

We are all made up of unique combinations of building blocks. Our personalities, our morals, and our past experiences take on different roles in shaping us into who we are now. Some of us are more reactive, others are more reserved. Some of us have memories that hold onto pain far longer than others. We forgive at different rates and become ready to ask for help at different times. This idea is far easier to apply to ourselves than it is to other people, but this is the idea we should recognize in order to combat a belief system that will lead to a callus. It is important to remember that the last asshole who hurt you is made up of unique building blocks of their own. Therefore, it is silly to fit them into a category.

I urge you to begin recognizing where you may have created these belief systems within your own life, and to practice recognizing those events as individual occurrences. You will find that through this practice, you will grow rapidly and feel more fulfilled.

Allow me to say it again: Good is not the exception to the rule.