superfitbabe

REALLY think about this one.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of toxicity and pettiness within a lot of the social media committees I follow. I personally don’t really identify with one, hence I won’t name anybody, but let’s just say that there are a lot of pretty darn brutal people who can be complete parasites. Obviously there are people like that in real life on the streets too: terrorists, murderers, people who consciously abuse animals or other people for pleasure, bullies, people who cover up corruption and allow injustice to happen, rapists, people who are greedy and selfish and allow others to starve while they’re priding in their gluttony, people who take advantage of others, people who say horrible things, whatever. But when it really boils down to the core, do these things make someone a bad person?

What defines a bad person is the question. Is it someone who is annoying? Dishonest? Cold? Remorseless? Pessimistic? Disagree with me all you want, but none of these traits make someone a bad person. I think that the words “good” and “bad” can be so subjective that you can’t pinpoint which one a person might be. You can use as much reason as you want to classify someone as a bad person, but there will always be someone else out there who will listen to that and disagree with you, because that person’s vision of what defines a bad person is totally different from yours.

At the end of the day, everybody has a reason why they are who they are. People are probably dishonest because they either don’t want to hurt other people with their true thoughts or are afraid that nobody will like their true selves. That is a problem that stems from a place of fear or hurt, not inherent evil. Some people are extremely aggressive because they cannot channel their anger in a more meaningful way and they know that the people they target can’t hurt them back (which isn’t good to begin with). Homophobics just don’t understand the LGBT culture–the majority of religious leaders who are notoriously homophobic feel that their religion is being harmed. Lastly, everybody likes to gossip and say horrible things about each other for several reasons: we’re insecure, we’re riveted by drama, and/or we like to find something to blame or be angry at for our subconscious problems. But are we all “bad people” for this reason?

Nobody is entirely a bad person as nobody is entirely good. I’ve seen the darker sides of people that I look up to as well as the brighter sides of those who I find more controversial. That is what makes other people so fascinating. Imagine a world of black and white–how boring would that be? So while there are definitely circumstances where justice should be served and people should face consequences for wrongdoings they have done, this does not mean that we should be slapping the labels of good versus evil. It’s hard to justify what is the true difference between the two, so we really shouldn’t be bothering with them at all. If anything, it’s more accurate to use specifics.

Someone who is labeled a bad person is rather a stubborn person, or a deceitful person. Anyone who is good could be described as generous, polite, considerate or understanding. These are all traits that make the world go round, and without them, we wouldn’t know how to shape ourselves and learn about the world around us. It’s just up to us as to whether or not we want to block certain people out of our lives. For me personally, I don’t want to surround myself around individuals who are critical, rash, dishonest, illogical, superficial, arrogant, disrespectful, ungrateful, pushy, indecent, judgmental and/or bland. Notice how I never affiliated any of those words with the “evil” category. These are just characteristics that I find don’t allow me to grow or benefit from, and that’s awesome. Others can benefit from any of the traits listed above, and that’s okay too. Just surround yourself with people that will teach you something new everyday and add positivity into your life.