Watch Out for the Easy Path
The book,"In Sheep's Clothing", which I referenced in the last post gives a list of seven specific distorted thinking patterns of character-disordered people (pages 22-23). A quick look at the list without the full descriptions is as follows:
"The disturbed character always wants things the easy way. He hates to put forth effort or accept obligation. He gets far more joy out of 'conning' people. This way of thinking promotes an attitude of disdain for labor and effort." (Emphasis mine.)
The laziness described above is primarily a moral laziness. It feels easier to run a "confidence" game than it does to live by the rules. The morally lazy disordered character actually looks down on those of us who live by rules. This is where the "attitude of disdain" comes in. We are dupes for staying within the lines. We deserve to get "taken" because we are "stupid" for being constricted by rules that can be easily broken. The disturbed character grants you no points for being moral. Your morality is your weakness, in their eyes. They look down on you for it.
Over the last few years I have been forcefully made aware of a truth:
The easy course is usually the evil course.
Let's stand back and and look at this from a broader perspective. By broader, I mean let's take it out of the realm of the disordered character and superimpose this truth over all humanity. You don't have to be a disordered character to be morally lazy.
The most personal illustration for me of this reality is the life of my father. He is most definitely not a disordered character. Everyone who knows him thinks very highly of him. He is considered a very decent human. He is very personable and helpful. He is very competent in all that he does. To his family (immediate and extended) he has become a different man. When it would have counted he has been too morally weak to stand up to his wife to defend his children (or other family). He has, time and again, chosen the easiest course in dealing with his disordered charactered wife...capitulation...and left the weakest and most defenseless in her clutches without accountability. He studied his own convenience resulting in him taking the path of least resistance. His weak moral decisions has resulted in a trail of woe for others that is beyond calculation. He took the easy course and thereby enabled and supported evil. Evil has flourished in his own house because of his moral capitulation.
It hasn't stopped with his supporting my mother's evil. Evil has infected his own soul. As he has aged he has become bitter and cynical. He is almost constantly angry. He is quick to think the worst of others. He has imbibed deeply of my mother's spirit. For many years he has surrendered his integrity in order to keep my mother "happy". He demands all of his family to do the same. But, of course, he can not see he is demanding we surrender our own integrity. He has renamed his loss of integrity to be loyalty. He has adopted the "mob family mentality" in order to make his moral decrepitude into moral superiority. He has adopted the mindset of an abuser because he has justified my mother's abuse. He is now tyrannical because he has justified his wife's tyranny over others. He is immoral because he has justified her immorality. It is a cryin' shame. I have watched a man deteriorate over the years both physically and morally. A good man has been thoroughly corrupted by the evil he has capitulated to for decades.
This is the problem with taking the morally easy course. You can be an overall very good person, but a lifetime of moral laziness in one area of your life will eventually infect the whole person. You can not confine your immorality to one area of your life for ever. Eventually that area of your life will touch other areas. You find yourself rationalizing and capitulating in another area. And another. All in order to justify your original capitulation. Giving into someone else's immorality, over the course of time, will infect your own morality. It is a dangerous thing to do the easy thing. To study your own comfort, to cherish your own convenience is often the doorway which opens your soul to making immoral choices.
It is the human experience that we are all confronted with making a choice between doing the right thing and doing what is easiest. I am challenging you to separate yourself out from the disordered thinking of the character disordered. The disordered character lives by the criminal code of "quick and easy". All humans are frequently confronted by having to make a choice between "quick and easy" and the right thing. The more often you chose right over easy the better person you will be.
We can not afford to be morally lazy when dealing with the malignant narcissist. My father is an example of the corruption of a soul who chose easy over principled when dealing with his malignantly narcissistic wife. Constant capitulation to the narcissist's immoral demands will erode your self-respect. The less self-respect you have, the more easily you can justify taking the easy road. You seriously risk becoming evil yourself.
Adult children of narcissists have usually witnessed this truth in their own families. Usually ACONs have only one parent with NPD. It is very often believed that the other non-NPD parent is the "good" parent. This is rarely true. The person who stands by and knowingly allows an abuser to abuse is arguably even more evil than the abuser. Why do I think that? Because often the abuser abuses out of their subjective emotional reactions. The parent standing by is more emotionally objective. They are not embroiled in the abuser's emotional state therefore they can more clearly see the wrongness of the abuse. Yet they stand by. How frakking evil is that??!! A grown adult who can stand by and allow an abuser to hurt his or her own children is evil. Period. You can not capitulate to evil and not become evil yourself.
Know it. Live by it.
- Self-focused (self-centered) thinking.
- Possessive thinking.
- Extreme (all-or-none) thinking.
- Egomaniacal thinking.
- Shameless thinking.
- Quick and easy thinking.
- Guiltless thinking.
"The disturbed character always wants things the easy way. He hates to put forth effort or accept obligation. He gets far more joy out of 'conning' people. This way of thinking promotes an attitude of disdain for labor and effort." (Emphasis mine.)
The laziness described above is primarily a moral laziness. It feels easier to run a "confidence" game than it does to live by the rules. The morally lazy disordered character actually looks down on those of us who live by rules. This is where the "attitude of disdain" comes in. We are dupes for staying within the lines. We deserve to get "taken" because we are "stupid" for being constricted by rules that can be easily broken. The disturbed character grants you no points for being moral. Your morality is your weakness, in their eyes. They look down on you for it.
Over the last few years I have been forcefully made aware of a truth:
The easy course is usually the evil course.
Let's stand back and and look at this from a broader perspective. By broader, I mean let's take it out of the realm of the disordered character and superimpose this truth over all humanity. You don't have to be a disordered character to be morally lazy.
The most personal illustration for me of this reality is the life of my father. He is most definitely not a disordered character. Everyone who knows him thinks very highly of him. He is considered a very decent human. He is very personable and helpful. He is very competent in all that he does. To his family (immediate and extended) he has become a different man. When it would have counted he has been too morally weak to stand up to his wife to defend his children (or other family). He has, time and again, chosen the easiest course in dealing with his disordered charactered wife...capitulation...and left the weakest and most defenseless in her clutches without accountability. He studied his own convenience resulting in him taking the path of least resistance. His weak moral decisions has resulted in a trail of woe for others that is beyond calculation. He took the easy course and thereby enabled and supported evil. Evil has flourished in his own house because of his moral capitulation.
It hasn't stopped with his supporting my mother's evil. Evil has infected his own soul. As he has aged he has become bitter and cynical. He is almost constantly angry. He is quick to think the worst of others. He has imbibed deeply of my mother's spirit. For many years he has surrendered his integrity in order to keep my mother "happy". He demands all of his family to do the same. But, of course, he can not see he is demanding we surrender our own integrity. He has renamed his loss of integrity to be loyalty. He has adopted the "mob family mentality" in order to make his moral decrepitude into moral superiority. He has adopted the mindset of an abuser because he has justified my mother's abuse. He is now tyrannical because he has justified his wife's tyranny over others. He is immoral because he has justified her immorality. It is a cryin' shame. I have watched a man deteriorate over the years both physically and morally. A good man has been thoroughly corrupted by the evil he has capitulated to for decades.
This is the problem with taking the morally easy course. You can be an overall very good person, but a lifetime of moral laziness in one area of your life will eventually infect the whole person. You can not confine your immorality to one area of your life for ever. Eventually that area of your life will touch other areas. You find yourself rationalizing and capitulating in another area. And another. All in order to justify your original capitulation. Giving into someone else's immorality, over the course of time, will infect your own morality. It is a dangerous thing to do the easy thing. To study your own comfort, to cherish your own convenience is often the doorway which opens your soul to making immoral choices.
It is the human experience that we are all confronted with making a choice between doing the right thing and doing what is easiest. I am challenging you to separate yourself out from the disordered thinking of the character disordered. The disordered character lives by the criminal code of "quick and easy". All humans are frequently confronted by having to make a choice between "quick and easy" and the right thing. The more often you chose right over easy the better person you will be.
We can not afford to be morally lazy when dealing with the malignant narcissist. My father is an example of the corruption of a soul who chose easy over principled when dealing with his malignantly narcissistic wife. Constant capitulation to the narcissist's immoral demands will erode your self-respect. The less self-respect you have, the more easily you can justify taking the easy road. You seriously risk becoming evil yourself.
Adult children of narcissists have usually witnessed this truth in their own families. Usually ACONs have only one parent with NPD. It is very often believed that the other non-NPD parent is the "good" parent. This is rarely true. The person who stands by and knowingly allows an abuser to abuse is arguably even more evil than the abuser. Why do I think that? Because often the abuser abuses out of their subjective emotional reactions. The parent standing by is more emotionally objective. They are not embroiled in the abuser's emotional state therefore they can more clearly see the wrongness of the abuse. Yet they stand by. How frakking evil is that??!! A grown adult who can stand by and allow an abuser to hurt his or her own children is evil. Period. You can not capitulate to evil and not become evil yourself.
Know it. Live by it.
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." Matt. 7:13 NIV
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