I have these friends that are a couple...and they are amazing people whom I consider part of my extended family. They've been together since high school and sometimes it's all I can do not to gape in amazement at the sheer togetherness that they have. They are the kind of couple that you enjoy just being around hearing their verbal patter back and forth that has such a weird yet synchronous rhythm to it. But sometimes it's a little hard to watch all that love and support flying around and not feel...completely envious. It's a little degrading to know that your happiness for their happiness is sometimes tempered by this small and selfish part that cannot get over the hurdle of "why not me?".
The vast majority of my conscience is well aware that nothing in life is ever owed to anyone, that expectations, no matter how great, will never just coalesce into reality purely by force of will.
But it's depressing to realize that good actions and abiding by that whole "do unto others as you would have done unto you" does not mean that the universe is going to uphold that one. It sometimes seems that accounting of good actions vs. bad actions is severely in the red, that there is no real benefit to being a "good" person except perhaps self satisfaction, and I can tell you right now that currently if surveyed I would fall into the "less than satisfied" category.
All this constant guilt I carry around, worrying about whether or not I'm hurting someone, letting someone down, not helping someone enough...it's useless. No one cares except me if I'm burdened by guilt and apparently no one but me suffers if I choose the moral high ground. None of my helpfulness, generosity, compassion, or patience have gotten me any closer in terms of building the kind of relationship I want to have, the kind that I see between these two wonderful people.
So what? Do I throw my google-esque "don't be evil" motto out the window and just live hedonistically? Send the guilt trips packing and shove everyone and everything to a lower priority than whatever I want?
I have another option. My friends for the most part have always been wonderful and supportive human beings that I am proud to know. So maybe it's time to cut out the fringe element that seems to be causing all these problems. Change the ultimate goal to one based more on self-reliance and satisfaction through other avenues. Because you know who has never let me down? Me. Maybe I can't trust people, animals, or the general moral accounting practices of the universe but when it comes down to it we enter and leave this world utterly alone...the rest is just filler.
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