Much of the reading public is aghast, appalled at Fergie, Duchess of York being caught in a sting. She was lured into a den of baser humanity and caught on video mouthing words that cannot be denied or reinterpreted to mean anything close to “I smoked but did not inhale.” She not only smoked, but inhaled.
I am neither aghast nor appalled. I am saddened for her and for me. You see, I am no different from Fergie. I have sold my integrity for a lot less than $1 million.
You don’t have to be in dire financial straits to be lured. The promise of looking good, better, or best has made me trick people to send money my way that would not have found it in my pocket had people seen my hidden agenda. I have convinced myself that all I needed was to give people just a wee bit of push in the direction they were already headed, anyway. My innocent but self-serving contribution was to simply make some strategically placed comments, drop some names, blue sky a fantasy future for them, and presto, money in my pocket.
I have done it and don’t feel proud of it. Finding the Duchess of York in that mess is just my reminder of how she and I are not separate from each other. We are both made of the same clay. What she deserves is no less than what I want to give myself: compassion for the mistakes and a resolve to be vigilant against mindlessness.
You don’t fall into this kind of trap when you are present to your life. You slip only when craving has gotten the better of you, or its underbelly, Fear, has caught you in its vise. Fear of not making the grade, Fear of losing status, Fear of social disapproval, Fear of not meeting expectations, Fear of not being enough, Fear of not measuring up to some unknown nonhuman standard. You fall into this trap when you lose the present in favor of an imagined Future where things will be better.
The present is already immensely rich, if I but awaken from the nightmare called habitual desires.
