BROTHER GIOVANNI’S JOURNAL
Occasionally Brother Franco and I have to deal with the issues of trust and integrity in our introductory seminars with novice monks and recent arrivals to Pizzaonia. This will be a brief opening to one of the issues that came up recently. For now we will introduce the problem to give you some time to think about it. We will deal with possible solutions later.
What is your “being had” quotient?
I never cease to be amazed at how easily we can be fooled by people, especially when there are inherent aspects of our personality we may not always be conscious of that allow us to be willingly deceived.
We tend to judge people by our personal value system. If we are open and honest, we see most people the same way. It is hard to believe that we can be this naïve, but unfortunately, those of us most likely to be taken advantage of are those who are the most trusting - and, being the most trusting, we are the most vulnerable to “being had” and manipulated.
But how about you – where are you in this equation?
If you are a trusting person and feel vulnerable to manipulation because of it, do you want to change? Presuming to have some maturity you are probably the way you are because you like it. It begs the question, why change?
Do you like yourself as is, or do you want to make possible changes. I say possible changes because not all attempts at change are possible. It takes serious personal introspection to know the difference.
Next: What to do about it? How to recognize the charlatan and other stuff.
Till then,
Brother Giovanni
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