The kids and I like to watch movies together. It’s just something fun we do when we get to spend a night at home. Recently we’ve watched a couple of “blockbuster” status movies with really strong, powerful female characters and heroes. I love that for many reasons. Selfishly, the main reason is that I’m watching these movies with my 7 year old daughter! She is already full of spunk and confidence and I love that she gets to see these heroes and my hope is that they inspire her to keep that powerful self-image.
Sadly, the creators of these movies decided to make the male characters incompetent buffoons. I was upset by this, again for many reasons, but mainly because I’m also watching these movies with our son. And at 11, he’s in that pre-teen phase of life that can start to get a bit awkward. He already doesn’t show the same “take-on-the-world” mentality that our daughter has, so it might be nice if was exposed to good, positive role-model characters too.
Now, this was so blatant that I’m very sure the creators of these movies were pushing an agenda of some sort but that aside, couldn’t they have made the choice to have both the female and male characters be “good?” (I’m not talking about good vs. evil or heroes vs. villains.) Did they need to show one group as “bad” in order for us to see the other as “good?” I sure think it would have been nice to show good, strong females AND males working harmoniously together but lately, our society seems to love to create an “us against them” atmosphere over everything. That’s for another day though.
What this all really got me thinking about was our mentality around improvement. And is it human nature to only view good if it is sharply contrasted with bad? Can good just be good?
I’m am very critical of myself. I have been for as long as I remember. I think this comes from my dad’s attempt to teach us a good work ethic. He used to point out everything that was wrong with what we had done in an effort to motivate us to do a better job. I suppose that is good in theory but it sure didn’t workout well for my confidence level! I remember learning multiplication in grade school and we did a weekly test of our times tables, 1-12. I made it all the way to my 12’s without missing any. I got one wrong on my test of the 12’s and cried in the coatroom over missing one math problem. Trust me, it’s not a super fun way to go through life! Even today, at 45 years old, if you see me out doing something: playing music, curling, training, even just socializing, I can guarantee you that I’m not thinking of just doing my best but instead I’m focused on not screwing up! There’s a big difference! So sadly, my motivation to improve, or do a good job comes much more from trying to avoid “bad” vs. being “good.”
It’s pretty easy to see how this happens. Improvement is usually seen as an act of contrast. Something is “bad” and we want to make it “good,” or “better.” Home improvement is an enormous industry and it’s all about taking something we don’t like, improving it and turning it into something we do like. Turning bad into good. People will say they hate their job and they are going to look for a better one. Same with their car, their living situation, their body, and so on. This makes sense. Humans are wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure so if we view something as bad and thus painful, we are all the more motivated to improve the situation. In this way, the “bad” can cause us to strive for “good.”
This can create a problem though depending on how we are wired and what we are trying to improve. Sometimes, going from “bad” to “good” happens quickly, we make the change and then we are done thinking about it. The room is painted, the garage is cleaned up, our closet is organized and we move on. The bad motivated us to seek the good, we took action and made it happen. That’s great!
Other times, the trip from bad to good is a much longer journey. We may have declared that where we are is “bad” and where we are going is “good,” but by the time we get there, the good isn’t good enough anymore. What we once thought of as good is now the new bad and the new good exists out there in the future as something to chase after. When we reach that new good, guess what? I’m sure you see where this is going and while this might keep us motivated and always improving, if we always see the “bad” as painful, it also keeps us from ever being happy!
Many of the big categories of life: our work, relationships, health and wellness, etc. are lifelong pursuits. Hopefully we will make the choice to always be learning, growing, moving forward and improving but if we fall into the trap of always thinking that where we are is “bad” and where we will be after our improvement as “good,” we will never get to that “good!”
Just as I wanted from the portrayal of those characters in the movies, I think we need a “good, and also good” mentality. We can make the choice to seek improvement not because where we are is bad but because it’s fun and exciting to learn, grow and improve. It’s sounds cliche but we have to make it about the journey and not the destination. Otherwise we run the risk of never being happy with who/where we are. I know personally, I need to stop running from where I am thinking that when things get better, it will be good and I will be happy. I need to abandon the idea that good can only exist in contrast to bad and move toward a “good and also good” mentality. It won’t make my lazy and I won’t stop trying to improve, I just stand a much better chance of enjoying where I am AND where I’m going.
