'basically an awful human being' .... oh really?! not buying that one. that's not a truth .... that's a story you're telling yourself, a story that's coming from a place deep down, a core belief that seems to ripple out and affect your whole life in a broad sense. but it's NOT a truth!
it's very much what I spent 35 years of my life believing, though. and well, I haven't got it totally rooted out either .... this deep deep feeling that I have an irredeemably bad, wicked, rottenly flawed, defective character, that not only is my personality and my mind/heart troubled, but my very soul has a rip in it. well, it seemed so real, that I thought it must be true - and it has been such a deep thing that I still feel it there. BUT! I know better now, believe more now, that it is NOT a true thing. I struggle, I am imperfect, I am flawed, there are some naughty things in my character sure enough, but I am NOT basically an awful human being, wicked, pathetic, beyond repair/redemption, a soul lost .... I am NOT that. I am simply a human being, not simple, but gloriously complex - and there are also good things in me that balance out the not so good. What I believe is true for me I believe is true for YOU, Apteryx, and everyone else here - not a one of us here is 'basically an awful human being', we are all human beings, human beings of imperfection but great worth, with hope and potential .....