Compliments of Josie Fraser via Flickr

Feedback given in a spirit of mutual support is a world away from the punitive, one-sided, backhanded approach that is so characteristic of egocentric individuals. Those who are uplifters, who seek to positively contribute to other people’s lives, do not display their character (or lack thereof) in a mean-spirited fashion. These individuals are too noble to go for the jugular when it’s exposed, or when someone else is unable to fight back. If you have an issue with someone and if you behave in a manner which is underhanded, stingy, and vengeful, in the end whom will you have helped? Be assertive – persistent in a nice way, in a manner that respects the boundaries of those around you. For a narcissist, the emphasis is on building self importance through other denigration. The only sense of power and importance they derive is from destroying the inner scaffolding of those they perceive as enemies.

Outgrowths of smallness and fear are the mirror image of behavior that results from false aggrandizement: selfishness, exploitation, lying, manipulation, violence, brutality, domination, impatience, withdrawing, judging, and ridicule, with accompanying emotions of anger, rage, vengefulness, hatred, jealously, envy, loneliness, spite, sorrow, despair, grief, regret, greed, lust, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, and superiority (Zukav, 1989). Richard Matheson, Gary Zukav, and others have argued that emotions create karma, your spiritual satchel of thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Most of us use our mental space as if we will never have to review the contents, and thus we behave as if our actions were unimportant.  When we fail to become the watcher of our deeds and the voyeur of our words, we put our inner conscience on cruise control. The concept of  lifetime review  however suggests that every act is weighed upon the universal scales of justice to assess its degree of spiritual acceptability. 

In karmic retribution no act goes unnoticed, and will eventually (in some form or another) find its way back to the one who initiated an action. Acts upon the defenseless may seem without consequence, but in reality, “what goes around comes around.” Given that premise a spiteful posting, a callous comment, or a vote of no-confidence can have some unintended repercussions. We will advance as a whole when our intentions are pure, and when what we seek to promote above all is well-being. Sinetar (1991) notes the paradox of self-development wrought through subversion of self-seeking:  “We prosper enormously when profiting others and when forgetting our own interests.”

Surreptitious snide remarks on a slam site say more about the poster than other people. Libeling someone else is actually an act of self-recrimination, for when you defame another person, you injure yourself. At the end of the day can you step back and say “I’m proud of what I did?” Everything you do and say either adds or detracts from the collective whole. Be transparent in your dealings by avoiding the cowardly route to self-expression – take the high road, and have an honest conversation instead. In crafting an anonymous response for posting (online or elsewhere), ask yourself – would I say this to the person’s face? What is my purpose in disseminating this information? Before you decide to offer your unsolicited opinion or to send an inflammatory remark, consider the ramifications– is this something you would want someone to say about you? How would you feel upon reading it?

Self-centered information is only relevant to the sender of such scripts – it does not uplift, inform, or improve the situation of which the self-righteously incensed speak. After contemplating the above, you may therefore choose to keep your scathing comments to yourself.

The world will thank you.

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References

Sinetar, M. (1991). Developing a 21^st century mind.  New NY: Villard Books.

Zukav, G. (1989). The seat of the soul.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.