What do you criticize in the world?

Who do you condemn for your misery?

How have you become bitter?

Take the time to write your answers down.

Don’t play saint on me; be brutally honest with yourself.

Here is one of my strategies to discover the inner world and resolve the drama in the background of the mind.

What do you criticize in the world?

I have been criticizing education, politics, and gender since my childhood.

In hindsight, this explains my troubles with the power dynamics in life.

To move on with the exercise, make three columns: attacking, alternatives, and realism.

You will get something like this.

I repeatedly attack education for:

Lack of teachers that preach curiosity

Standardized testing

Bulling

Paradigm oriented research in a holistic world

Bureaucratic rules

Instead, I could see:

The teachers who taught me crucial lessons about life

Standardized testing treats people ‘equally’ on paper

Children get more than enough time to make friends

Kuhn eradicated quack in the medical system, the people who practice unprofessional forms of healing, saving millions of lives in the process.

Without bureaucracy, chaos would rule.

The war on education hinders/blinds me:

Listening to constructive feedback of teachers

Seeing all the exciting educational innovations

Understanding how hard it for most people to make friends

The advantages of intellectualism

The development of power distribution through the ages

These exercises are inspired by Gabriella Bernstein’s book The Judgment Detox.

Who do you condemn for your misery?

Don’t worry about anyone seeing this exercise.

Most people don’t read other people’s notes.

If you want to feel safe, burn it, destroy it, or throw it in a trashcan.

In my opinion, it feels cathartic to write the blame off you.

Burn the past to make bridges to the now — Photo by Anna Popović on Unsplash

Write down the names of the people and how you think they have hurt you.

People who have hurt me in the past/ in the now:(I have changed the names in this article):

Jack Macphee, the second-grade high school bully

Ann Leister, another second-grade high school bully

Michel Dornwood, a university teacher who couldn’t provide me with an adequate council when I wrote my thesis

Lana Lakewood, a university teacher who felt attacked by me, when all I needed was assistance

Then continue with writing about emotional scarring.

How they have opened my wounds of the past:

Jack reminded me of my struggles with self-worth and not belonging to this world.

Ann reminded me of the pain when in elementary school in the third grade, my childlike girlfriend BFF broke up with me on Valentine’s day because the GF couldn’t do it herself.

Michel reminded me of all my clashes with my teachers before, for example, when they could explain a difficult philosophy question.

Lana reminded me of student counselor in high school, who could only listen to what she wanted to hear and not not to my story.

In the third column, you humanize the actions.

My current understanding of the events of the past:

Jack, had anger issues and worked hard as a semipro at professional soccer club but was removed from the selection. Maybe his parents or his environment pushed him to attack the weak to gain some feeling of control in his life. I forgive him for all what has passed.

for all what has passed. Ann, couldn’t have known my scarring of the past. Therefore what she perceived as being funny and maybe flirty was wrongly interpreted by me. I forgive her for all of our experiences in life.

for all of our experiences in life. Michel doesn’t want to influence the minds of his pupils, according to another student. I think it runs deeper. I suspect he has depression of some sort and has had the time or empathy to level with me at my time of need. I forgive him for his lack of character as he is working on himself.

for his lack of character as he is working on himself. Lana is an outstanding teacher in real life. She and I were put together by Michel although she told me she couldn’t help me during our first meeting. She expected things of me and me from her. When I came open with our lack of understanding, the bottled frustration, and stress got the better of her. So she left me in anger and grief. I forgive her moving on as she was already under a lot of pressure.

Embrace otherness and let go. — Photo by Christiana Rivers on Unsplash

How have you become bitter?

The last part of the excise focusses in on the benefits of what had happened.

Write down how these events and people transformed your mind.

All these negative interactions have made me

a radical against the university system.

I have been crucifying teachers, staff members, and students along the way.

seen myself as an outcast

prevented me from listening to the other

Then write down, your conscious decision to let go and spent your time on more important matters.

I choose to:

I choose to no longer put my blinders on about the merits of higher educations. But it has taught me that learning and teaching still has a long way to go.

put my blinders on about the merits of higher educations. that learning and teaching still has a long way to go. I choose to humanize the actors in education. I have learned that they tried their bests.

humanize the actors in education. they tried their bests. My failures with the educational system have opened my eyes. Hence I choose to spend my time with education innovators.

the educational system have opened my eyes. with education innovators. My frustration and anger have had the better of me in the past. I choose to take a few deep breaths or count to 100 before I take any action when such feelings arise in me again.

For the last part, scribble down how the negative experiences had set you up to future success. First time doing this it can be hard, but there is always a silver lining.

How this transformed me as a person:

This anger, frustration, and pain have led me to volunteer.

volunteer. I wouldn’t have met all these exciting friends: Esli, Roos, and Vincent.

all these exciting friends: Esli, Roos, and Vincent. I learned to humanize peoples actions, making me more empathetic and sympathetic

I work with people who want to better the world through education.

better the world through education. My emotions led me to the study of Stoicism and Taoism.

To end the exercise write down a conclusion:

I accept all that has passed by choosing to work together with the academic world. Hence I quit my anarchistic crusade against the educational system.

Final thoughts

I have made some similar excises many times before and every time I can reprogram my mind.

Letting go of what no longer serves me; decluttering of the mind in the process.

I recommend this exercise to anyone who feels that the world weights them down.

It is time to throw our backpacks of a negative experience away.

Learn from what has happened, but don’t be enslaved by the past.

I choose the light over the dark! — Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

This text is #14 of the 30-days creative writing challenge.