Finding Spirituality: Navigating Life's Battle of Good and Bad

Why does it seem inherently harder to be good than bad? I guess this post is to better investigate my road to spirituality... don't worry, this isn't about religion. "Do you accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior?" isn't going to be the pitch at the end. It's more about the general idea of good and bad in the world. For some reason, it seems harder to be "good" than to be "bad".

Trying to attain spiritual enlightenment takes a few select people decades of self-sacrifice, isolation, discipline, and a myriad of other things just to get internal peace or understand the universe. Whether you're a monk, a Buddhist, a shaman, or any other spiritual leader you align with. Granted, that is an extreme, it seems pretty evident in all aspects it's easier to just mail it in and be a self-obsessed dick than a worldly person. Nowadays, it's super easy to be fat and unhealthy; the food tastes great, it's easy to access, cheaper, and moving sucks in general, the couch is warm and cozy. If anyone says they want kale and a 40-mile hike over a pint of ice cream and a lazy boy, I will show you a person who is in denial. Even though the walk and the kale are ultimately the "better" or "good" decision to make.

You could say the same about personal growth and development. Anyone who has been to any type of therapy can tell you it sucks working on yourself. Being blissfully ignorant was the best. You mean I can go out, drink, and use people how I see fit and still sleep like a baby? What do you mean I have generational trauma and all my relationships are built on codependency issues? Now, some people can live like this forever, and for some, it is not sustainable... Guess which one I am? I'll give you a hint... I sleep poorly now.

This now leads into a bigger rabbit hole of things that seem to be easy to attain now. Give pleasure immediately but will ultimately lead to a worse outcome down the road. So does that mean that maybe the way we intentionally see or interpret "bad" or "good" can all just be misconstrued? Is this crazy meta or just a bunch of word vomit? Let me try and get this back down to earth ( is the HeadCase title making sense yet? )

It's not all spiritual though, its with interpersonal interactions too. My uncle always used to say no good deed goes unpunished. Which I thought was nonsense. That is until you get older and begin to realize that its not usually the person who does the right thing that gets ahead. Look at politics, celebrities and a lot of people who are higher up the corporate food chain. In most peoples life experiences I'd say they're bosses aren't always the best people. Are there exceptions to this ??? Absolutely there are, but I'd bet my life on it that their paths were more difficult to walk than the others. It's hard to not come up with a million examples of this during our modern day and age. Having a healthy sex life with a spouse vs porn, reading vs death scrolling, etc. The list to me at least seems endless.

I guess this is were spirituality comes in. Does that mean that there is ultimately a plan at hand? It seems awfully convenient that the most difficult things in life are ultimately the most fulfilling, while the easy way out or the quickest ways to fake feeling good ultimately leads to a road of isolation and pain. This is possible even if the person themselves doesn't see it, we all know that local old person at the bar whose been divorced 3 times and drinks every night of the week. They're usually vocal and well chew the ear off of anyone who will listen for hours...they might seem like the warmest, friendliest, kindest, always laughing person but are they really happy or are they escaping? Lying to themselves?

That's the thing that makes me think this yin and yang, ebb and flow of life seems too organized to be random. It's too easy to fall into these self-absorbed and selfish tendencies that give instant gratification and ultimately fail. It seems like a trap. How can things that are so hard and taxing ultimately lead to an extremely happy and fulfilled life? This can't just be natural selection and Darwinism, right? Wouldn't we have been able to figure out how to be fulfilled while making it easier? Instead, it seems like we did the opposite; we went against nature and made things so easy that it's actually made our lives more complicated. Is it just how we receive dopamine? Is it the reptile brain? The universe? Are you there, God? It's me, Michael.

Most of these posts I don't have any answers to. That's kind of the point. Just because there isn't an exact answer doesn't mean we can't talk and question these things and learn from each other. Hopefully this can spark some questions in you that will ultimately lead to progress.