Paradigm Shift

Yesterday Judge William Thorne came to talk to my Social Work class, and one thing he said went in my ears and ricocheted around my brain for a while and I liked it. He said,

"People are not good or bad. But they are accountable for their actions."

Mind. Blown.
To understand why this hit me this way, let me take you back to my junior year in high school. My honors English teacher assigned us a big ole research paper and presentation which could be about ANY SUBJECT WE CHOSE. The freedom was exhilarating. The subjects chosen by my class ranged from chocolate to basketball to equal rights for women. The subject I chose was shyness and social disorders.
To this day I'm convinced I was just trying to figure out my own social problems.
My teacher even made a comment at the beginning of the presentation about the irony of my subject.
Anyway...
One of the theories I studied suggested that shy people were shy because they tended to make global judgements about themselves. Whereas one person could trip down a flight of stairs and think of it as an isolated incident, a shy person would trip down a flight of stairs and henceforth label themselves 'a clumsy person'. I began paying attention to this and noticed that it was true about me. If I procrastinated on my homework, I was a bad student and therefore a bad person. If I had a hard time contacting on the mission, I was a bad missionary and therefore a bad person. On the other hand, if I managed to be extra social at an activity I was a good friend and therefore a good person. And so on.
You can see how it might be tiring to be always flip-flopping between deciding that one is a bad person and deciding that one is a good person.
Internal questioning inevitably ensues.
And being a member of the church I get (and give myself) pep talks on nearly a daily basis about what a good person I am and how much potential I have and all that wonderful stuff.

But for some reason this phrase made so much more sense to me.
You are not a good or a bad person based on your actions. But you are accountable for them.
If I make a mistake, I simply take accountability for it, and move on.
I don't know why it has taken me this long to get this.
It's the basic principle of repentance.

Silly me :)