I often tell myself, and others: You can’t both do the wrong thing and judge yourself for it. It’s a waste of time.

If you know something is bad - to tell a lie, to sleep with someone you shouldn’t sleep with, to be absent from work for no good reason, to drink too much, to skip your exercises, to give a bribe - then don’t do it.

If you choose to do it, then don’t spend time judging yourself over it, beating yourself up about it, whipping yourself mentally for it. That’s just a waste of time - an illusory message sent to your brain that you are actually taking action to be better when in fact you are not.

The only way to be a good person is to do good things. To do bad things and then judge yourself for it doesn’t make you ’good’. It just makes you waste mental and emotional energy feeling bad about yourself when you could instead be working on how to do better next time.

It’s too much cognitive load - which makes you suffer twice. First, you spend time doing the wrong thing. And then you spend time judging yourself for doing the wrong thing.

It doesn’t make much sense.

Choose one.

Or choose none. You can save yourself the entire drama, and just do the right thing.

PS: Today is the second day of the daily meditation #40DaysBookClub. Join me on Instagram Live (@Chudeity) from 6:05am till 6:30am West African Time. See you soon.