Taken at Mahoney's
I talked to my mother over the phone today and she gave me this advice...
Mom:
Luisito, you need to change the way you think. You allow too much of what people do bother you. Not everyone is like us. I know that when you see hypocrisy around you you get upset and even indignant at how casually and readily it is accepted in this world. You have to learn how to live with hypocrisy.
You're going to have to learn to be a little hypocritical yourself too. You can't keep battling with it because you will lose. I've battled with the same thing and have lost over and over again. I've lost so much time battling with myself and with people about their own hypocrisy. Years Luis. I've lost years of my life in this battle. Until one day after years of stress, years of grief, years of frustration, years of bridges that were apparently burnt, I learned that I cannot win against hypocrisy and we need to just let it go.
Luis:
But mom, I am not a hypocrite. I refuse to be a hypocrite. I want to speak the truth and show the truth as it lies. I cannot start pretending that things are as seem because they are not. I am not going to start being a hypocrite. There is truth, and there is denial of truth, that is all there is. I am a man of truth.
Mom:
I know. I always want to tell people the truth too, and mostly I still do, but people do not like the truth. People live though their own perceived truth and any challenge to that truth must be defeated. If you focus on always speaking the truth it will be more difficult for you to be successful. People don't like people like us, because we don't make them feel good. People who are like us hold a mirror up to our chests out to the world and reveal through our small mirror all that we see and know of this world. Most of it is more profound than we even know it to be. There is truth in our mirrors that many see, until it is turned on them. Have you noticed that people quickly challenge you when they sense the mirror turning on them?
Luis:
Yea, that's true. They challenge the smallest thing almost to prove to themselves that there are cracks in the mirror before it tuns on them.
Mom:
I've had the same experiences, people know we can help but seek the truth in all things, and they do not like it, many people agree with most of what we say until that mirror is turned on them. By battling us to a draw, they validate themselves to themselves, and while you and I sit back and consider what they've said and contemplate who's truth is most real they have already stepped deeper into the abyss of denial and no longer accept our mirror as truth which comes off as disrespect.
Luis:
Yea, I understand.
Mom:
I cannot tell you how much I've lost because of my stubbornness to accept hypocrisy. I still do not accept it but at least I embrace it now. Just the other day at the church I was openly critical of how the director of education was organizing bible study groups, and shortly after she accused me for some shenanigans that occurred in her office. Of course I had nothing to do with it but I've been around long enough to know what would happen next. Everyone who's felt judged by me, whether I've ever spoken to them or not, will align against me and will collude to invalidate me in every possible way. So, I just stopped teaching in the bible study groups. It was easier that way. It wasn't worth fighting for, it wasn't worth losing time over.
Luis, you need to embrace hypocrisy. You know who you are, and nothing will change that, but if you want to succeed you're going to have to learn to embrace hypocrisy and not let its existence bother you so much.
Luis:
I know mom. Thank you.
A great play in a great game. Eastern Conference Finals. Bulls vs. Heat.
