Most dictionaries are authorities, at best, on reflecting how others use words, whether confused or not

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When is a constituent of a given language is confused about a word and checks the dictionary for help, the dictionary only reports on what most other constituents say they think the word means, regardless of whether that meaning is fuzzy and confused. Whenever this is true, the dictionary simply perpetuates confused thinking about the very tools that we use for making everyday life choices, allowing to think we know what we are thinking and talking about when we are not.

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Consider the word "good"

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I used the dictionary, like a Martian might, to try to get a clear idea of what people might mean when they use this word.

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Good: that which is morally right; righteousness.

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"Okay, but what does 'moral' mean?" thinks the Martian.

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Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

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"Maybe if I discover the meaning of 'right' then I'll know what 'good' means."

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Right: morally good, justified, or acceptable.

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"Is the fundamental idea of 'good' denoted by the word 'justified'?"

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Justified: having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason.

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"hmmmmmm..."

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Legitimate: conforming to the law or to rules.

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"hmmmmmm..."

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Rules: one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere.

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"But governing or regulating for what end and what purpose? I still have no real idea what this word 'good' means. But people sure seem to use it a lot and it also has a lot of influence over what people do or don't do," concludes the Martian.

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What have we or the Martian learned?

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Do we know any more at the end of this research and investigation than at the beginning? No. It's all circular with no foundation, leaving the meaning of the word "good" up for grabs, making it impossible to think or communicate clearly about what is good or bad.

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There is an actual grounded meaning of the word "good" (in the sense used above), which is never acknowledged or specified in any dictionary

 

Good: something which the speaker or listener will approve of and others whom the speaker approves of will also approve of. 

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In a particular instance of its use there may be additional contextually limited meanings, but, in the most general, yet accurate use of the word "good," that's what we mean when we think or speak it or listen to it.

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What happened and happens when we remain unaware of the actual meanings of "good" and its band of merry thieves (that steal our life away)?

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"Good," along with all its masked compatriots:

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• Bad

• Good enough

• Right

• Wrong

• Should

• Should not

• Supposed to

• Not supposed to

• Enough

• Have to

• Must

• Must not

• Fair

• Unfair

• Deserving

• Undeserving

• Decent

• Indecent

• Proper

• Improper

• Virtuous

• Sinful

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We gave away our life

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When we were young children, before we became so concerned about looking good and not looking bad, before we had absorbed the prescriptive meanings of good, bad, right, wrong, should, and should not, we lived free, we loved every day, we were naturally happy, curious, playful, adventurous, and self-expressed. 

 

What happened is that we gave our life away in order to look good and avoid looking bad, to belong, and to fit it...to do what we think others expect of us. The unspecified meaning of all these words is "do this and we'll approve of you" or "don't do that or we'll disapprove of you," Because we've bought into the whole idea of the HOGAB, our life purpose seems obvious: to be a good person. And what we've found is that the two top things others approve of is working hard for the future and taking care of others. Ultimately, though, being a good person means being approved of by others.

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The #1 regret of the dying is, "I wish I had chosen the courage to live a life true to myself rather than the life others expected of me." See Bonnie Ware's book, Five Regrets of the Dying.

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We've learned somewhat predictable things we can do to get approval

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How have we learned this? By noticing which types of prescriptive words are laudative and which are pejorative.

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If we sacrifice our Now to serve our Next, we're likely to get more approval (and avoid disapproval)

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Words like "persistence," "hard-working," and "diligent," each saturated with goodness, tell us what to do to get more approval. Words like "lazy," "loser," and "quitter," obviously infused with badness, tell us what to avoid doing so that we don't get blamed or looked down upon. To get a fuller picture of these armies of prescriptive words, go to the Now-Next wars.

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If we sacrifice our Oneself to serve our Others, we're likely to get more approval (and avoid disapproval)

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Words like "giving," "thoughtful," and "unselfish," imbued with lots of rightness, tell us how to be in order to be accepted and loved and thought of as being a good person. Words like "taker," "complainer," and "greedy," impregnated with wrongness, tell us how not to be in order to avoid being shunned, excluded, or condemned. To get a fuller picture of these armies of prescriptive words, go to the Oneself-Others wars.

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For us to do this right, however, we have to internalize the stick/carrot system

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To have a chance of real success at the approval and belonging game, we have to know when to approve or disapprove of ourselves first, not necessarily rely on the feedback of others when it may be too late. Or they might even hide it from us and then we'll run even more risk of being blindsided.

 

Solution: we have to "have a conscience" ​

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If we think that others think or might think that we did something wrong, then we need to blame ourselves first, trying to correct it or, at least prove that we're a good guy at heart.

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Or, if we're considering taking an action that we know or suspect others might disapprove of or be upset about, whether they know or not, we need to have that "moral compass" to guide us in the direction of avoiding disapproval.

 

Similarly, if we're considering taking action where we know or suspect others might think we would deserve credit and approbation for doing that or achieving that, even whether they know or not, we need to have that internal moral sense of thinking and feeling we're a better person by moving in this direction.

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Does that "moral compass" really belong to us?

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So it will seem like that "moral compass" is our own and did not arise out of our own need to get the approval of others and to avoid their disapproval. 

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That's not true.

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Try this on and you will discover this for yourself

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Think about something that you feel guilty about having done or not done. You can even think of a general sense of guilt, like "I'm not good enough" or "I'm not smart enough." It doesn't necessarily needs to be attached to anything in particular.

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Keep this sense of guilt in mind.

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Enter fully into an imaginary world

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Now I want you to enter an imaginary world. Remember, it's imaginary. Immerse yourself totally into this new world.

 

In this world, somehow, everyone knows you deeply and intimately. They know your every thought, feeling, and action. They are more intimate with you than you are with yourself. 

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This includes your parents, children, siblings, extended family, any special ones, your friends, your colleagues, your acquaintances, those that like you and those who don't. It includes all of those in the world who currently don't know you in the current "real" world. It includes everyone now, in the past, and in the future, even imagining those not alive or who will be alive in the future. It also includes God or whatever gods or other beings you think might exist. It includes everyone.

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This is how everyone thinks and feels about you...

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Now imagine deeply, like you know this and feel this deep in your heart, that everyone thinks you were, are, and have been amazing. They can't imagine anyone, including themselves being more awesome than you are. You've never done anything bad and it's impossible to think that whatever you might do would be in complete alignment with how everything should be.

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In this world are you the only holdout in thinking that you're not absolutely great!

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Of course not. Any sense of guilt or thinking you're not good enough would disappear. What this shows us is that all the issues of guilt, of regret, of not being enough, and self-blame and self-criticism are held in place by our resistance to fear that others will blame us, exclude us, or not admire us. We're beating others, whether real or imagined, to the punch. We're trying to communicate, "Look, you don't have to beat me up so much. I'm already feeling bad about this. I'm already trying to change. My feeling bad shows I'm not such a bad guy and I still belong to humanity." We're trading in our aliveness in exchange for trying to feel safer.

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Of course, we don't live in that imaginary world

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Others have, do, and may blame you or withhold their esteem from you. And you've probably done it to others and may do it again. Inside of the HOGAB, that's the weapon of choice, not only against others, but also against yourself.

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The way out

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"and others know we're willing to sacrifice

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don't live in that world

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actions good for other reasons

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no other guidance

NNI and OOI

How others see me

DNA

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