---
title: "Releasing my Contempt"
description: "For anyone quietly keeping score of how other people fall short."
author: "Rahim Rasul"
type: "Podcast episode"
series: "Halftime Talks"
episode: 178
published: "2019-04-30"
duration: "12 min"
theme: "Appreciation and perspective"
tags: "contempt, compassion, expectations, maturity"
audio: "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT178Contempt.mp3?dest-id=175061"
url: "https://iloveprocess.com/halftime/releasing-my-contempt/"
site: "I Love Process"
---

# Releasing my Contempt

_For anyone quietly keeping score of how other people fall short._

**The question:** Are we even living up to our own standards?

Listen: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT178Contempt.mp3?dest-id=175061

## Before you listen

Youth comes with a naive set of assumptions about the world. Time brings something better: perspectives that evolve, and a growing compassion. When the world couldn't meet my expectations, I held people and institutions in deep contempt. The next shift required me to release it.

In college I started seeing my own power and potential, and I held my teachers in contempt, measuring the tuition against the effort they gave. Early adulthood is full of shoulds. Working it through in my writing, I found contempt boils down to being upset that others don't meet the standards you've set for yourself, standards your own life experience gave you. Kobe Bryant's level could inspire others, but expecting everyone to work as hard as he did runs into a brick wall.

Listen for the closing words to my younger self, the one dreaming big and watching those dreams fall short of his immediate expectations: there's enough time, and discernment comes along the way.

## From the talk

> Nobody was beyond the scorn of my gaze.
>
> It boils down to being upset that other people are not living up to the standards that you have set for yourself.
>
> The game isn't really built like that. Reality folds and unfolds along a whole different line of criteria.

## Sit with this

- Are we compassionate to others and where they are in any given process?
- How do we negotiate ourselves forward?
- Are we compatible with the team and the environment around us?

## Transcript

Welcome to another episode, Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul, and you're listening to the podcast, but we recognize that in the middle of your game of life, whether you're by 10 or down by 20, each of us, you and I, we both need halftime talks to uplift us, inspire us and challenge us to bring that level performance it's gonna take to win the game.

So we're back. It's another episode, and before we get into it, we get into a little bit of appreciation. So let's go ahead and rock it. Today. I want to appreciate synergies. Synergies are those interesting things that happen when one plus one isn't two. One plus one becomes 10, when two people, a group of people, combine to create something that otherwise would not have been possible if one had attempted it themselves. I've had those relationships. When the world opens up, when the two of you, or the group of you get together, how it feels so much better, where it's not bogged down with the stress and the friction that other relationships have.

Finding those good synergies are not only the key to life, they are the magic in life. It is amazing when you meet a stranger and you work together in something that otherwise may not have been possible. That's what I want to appreciate.

You. For those who've been following halftime talks for a while, you know that performance is not always a function of ability, the actual talent required to play the game can sometimes be thwarted by our perspective of the game and the players besides ourself within it. Recently, I've been evaluating my path, my progressions and the things that I've discovered on my path, and I realized that I've been a little bit rebellious most of my most of my adult life, even Going back into my teens, I was a contrarian. I always thought I needed to do it myself, and that has strengths, and it also has its inherent challenges.

In college, I was activated. I started seeing my own power. I started seeing my own potential. I started realizing it, and realizing what I defined to be possibility, so much so that I took on a couple projects and flew. I began to get left, I began to fly. I began to see myself as not somebody on the path toward possibility, but somebody who was realizing it. Now, something interesting happens along this path when you begin to awaken into who you're destined to become. The world changes, or maybe it's us to change us, and we begin to look at the world for the contempt. Or at least I did, anytime I go back into my classes, and I would look at my teachers, and I look at the tuition I was paying, and I look at the effort that they were giving in their teaching, and I held them all in contempt.

Nobody was beyond the scorn of my gaze. I'm like, why are you trying to convince me to go into Student Services? Why are you doing this? Why aren't you living up to this standard? Why aren't you? Why? Why? Why should? Should, should. Expectation, expectation, expectation. Now I've referenced this quote from Huey P Newton a few times in this podcast, but why is it so hard for you to see what I see so clearly? And recently as I've been evaluating the idea of holding others in contempt for not fulfilling their potential as it relates to ways that we can engage or we can interact. The idea of contempt is selfish at best and short sighted at best too.

What I've discovered in my writing and in my process is that it boils down to being upset that other people are not living up to the standards that you have set for yourself. So basically, what they're doing has nothing to do with you, the life experience that you've led up to this point that has given you the precision, the discernment that's you those are your standards, and quite often, are we even living up to our own standards? Are we compassionate to others and where they are in any given process. And it's a funny thing, because early on, around that late teen, early adulthood, the world is full of shoulds. It should be like that. They should be doing this. They should treat me like this. I should be getting this because I deserve it.

The game isn't really built like that. Reality folds and unfolds along a whole different line of criteria. And you look in the NBA, you have people who are the superstars, people who have separated themselves from the pack, and somebody like Kobe Bryant. He just doesn't have any bandwidth for other people's excuses. He plays at a level, and can inspire those other people to reach it, but he can expect you to work as hard as he does, and when you do, you run into a brick wall. So in lieu of this understanding, how do we negotiate ourselves forward? Are we compatible with the team and the environment around us?

Are we, usually when it comes to our own standards, the interesting paradox. And I love paradoxes because there's so much truth at the epicenter of a paradox, most people will say and proclaim, a knowledge or an ability that they've yet to habitually Express. So the intent is there to coincide and live up to the standards that we all talk about. The intent is there, but far too often we fall short of meeting those intentions. Therefore, I hold you in contempt. There's a compassion to self that we we must discover, even when we fall short to our own and there's a compassion that we must cultivate when it comes to others finding their way through the myriad of ups and downs that life may present on their own.

Some people talk a good game. Some people don't talk and just show up and show out. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. We're all in the process of figuring out those who have have this uncanny ability to make it look easy. So we even declare that we. Want it, while not fully grasping the equity that we must build in order to sustain it. So in closing, I say to that younger version of myself who held the world in contempt, who was living ideally, who was dreaming big dreams and witnessing the reality of those dreams fall short of his immediate expectations? There's enough time to do it all along the way, you'll discover discernment, which will enhance your ability to fully relish, to fully relish in it, while, while you are at the crest of it all.

So be kind, be compassionate. Go forth and seek joy. And thank you for listening. This has been another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul. Make sure you get iTunes, subscribe, rate, leave us a review. We'd be really interested in seeing what you're saying about the podcast. Make sure you share with a friend. The more who know the more we grow and until next time you have yourself a good week peace you.