There was so much emphasis on “being a good boy” when I was growing up that I made a conscious decision to be bad.
Smoking heavily, drinking to oblivion, and sleeping around were part of my life for a long time. Getting blootered and riding my motorbike dangerously fast were favoured ways of getting out of my head.
More recently, having given up all of my previous forms of therapy, the grunt of climbing mountains and scaring myself on steep slopes and ridges has done the job.
But all of this was running away. It was doing anything but sitting quietly with my demons and facing them.
Being good meant fitting in, conforming to other people’s ideas of how I should behave.
It’s taken me sixty years to realise that the best way to be “bad” is to be myself, and for that to be enough.
The Obvious? 
Funny that. I found I was the opposite. I tried to be good, or as perfect as I could be growing up in a pretty tough, extremely strict environment. Leaving it could have given me the licence to do the opposite but I didn’t. Sometimes I wish I could have been a little less guarded. Less fearful of having to explain my actions. Thankfully, my later years allowed me to relax a bit because fear had dissipated and I could ease into learning about myself.
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Oh, I’m still trying to be good as well. Talk about conflicted!
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