Does anyone actually choose to be evil, bad, or a failure?

This is a very complex Q & many of the real answers lie in our own forgetfulness, the veil of non-remembering that most have place on them at birth.

We all appear to have different strengths & lacks even at birth, & come into this round of what we call life with tools accumulated from previous visits to this level. So yes, while we are effected by genetics some & experiences of our childhood this time around we also each bring with us predispositions related to those unremembered yet still a part of who we are past experiences here.

There simply are no accidents, I was born to the place & Souls that had the lessons I needed, & simply because I can not remember having a voice in that decision does not mean I did not. Not remembering is not proof of anything for we all live here in a state of great forgetfulness.

I do agree however that no one actually chooses to be a failure, but even the label is fuzzy in my mind. What may appear as failure to you may actually be exactly what I need in the process I am in.

Which leads to my next point, we are very closed in our perception here. We just can't see the whole of the process we are in except in hindsight. I have had many experiences in my life that were very difficult, where I struggled, & often asked why me?

LOL!

It was later down the road so to speak, that I was able to look back from a different perspective with more information & see that what I perceived as failure or lack on my part was actually laying the ground work for future events & understandings. If they had not occurred other things in my life would not have happened. What I have perceived as bad or negative in the past I look back upon as blessings today.

Simply, we can't judge, not even ourselves. In this present state we simply do not have access to all the information & things are usually much different than they appear in the focus of the moment.

Great Q!

Sorry for being so long winded.

Many Blessings!

Probably no one uses terms like "evil" "bad" or "failure". What's 'evil' or 'bad' depends completely on your perspective. Some people 'choose' certain circumstances because they like the drama, or want to experience the situation for some reason (ie, guilt). We choose more than we think we do, largely unconsciously.

If you think of yourself as any of those three terms, chances are you are doing what Socrates called "leading an unexamined life". You are living according to patterns, not really questioning what you are, or what you are doing, in any depth. At some point that kind of life becomes very depressing, or boring, or both.

I think our parents and grandparents do a lot to set the moral stage for us.

I remember as a child having watched a movie where clever jewel thieves had outwitted the alarm system in a vault or museum and made off with a fortune. I was so impressed at the excitement of it that I thought to myself, why not be a great and clever thief like them?

I presented the idea to my grandmother. She listened and then said, "In our family we would not even take a paperclip that did not belong to us."

That simple statement of fact washed away all the thrill of choosing evil over good.

But what of the children who have no moral compass? What if all their role models glorified crime?

By past experiences, I presume you mean among other things, parents. Successful parents more often than not raise successful children, as measured by society, and the obverse is sometimes true. Nevertheless, failure must in part, be measured against an individuals aspirations which may vary considerably. If an individual doesn't set targets of achievement, then it is society that uses the label of failure, as measured against the considered norm for that society.

Choices then, must surely be considered throughout one's life, and as with all choices a large element of luck and disappointment must enter the equation of one's aspirations. Choices then are easy or difficult, dependent upon the circumstances of the individual, and setbacks sometimes destroy an individuals aspirations leading to failure in the eyes of the individual and possibly of society too. In other words, what an individual might see as failure because of not reaching a goal, society at large might consider that individual to be successful. The opposite is also very true.

Personally, I regard evilness as being quite separate to failure when it comes to choice, since a failed person can be inherently good, again as measured by society. For instance the vagrant (hobo) who is kind and gentle with all of nature's creatures, would be considered a failure by others yet they would also see the good in him.

Evilness has supernatural connotations, and to my mind 'wickedness' is more appropriate, since I think choice between good and bad has little to do with divine law and once more is about how society judges a deed. It seems to me, society has many measures of wrongdoing, and we all hold some wrongs as being far more serious than others classifying them as evil.

The choice of doing evil deeds is presumably peculiar to the individual and is not well understood otherwise a good society would know how to prevent it. It seems obvious we can all be corrupted into evil ways, perhaps through indoctrination especially from an early age. Charismatic leaders in the past, have corrupted large numbers of their nation to commit to evilness by desire and through ignorance, these choices being made through the ballot box. Perhaps evilness in some individuals is innate from birth, a gene of wickedness able to corrupt others into evil ways, and possibly choices of wickedness are made in others by indoctrination from any age.

I agree totally. You have thought it out properly. good job.But note how funny, even ludicrous it is, that most people spend their entire lives imagining (pretending, unconsciously), that they are "in control" and choosing this or that. All nonsense! Thank you for your sanity. Only religion and politics need to foist the delusion that we choose, because they have to hold someone responsible when bad things happen. It's all a big "blame game."

I have wondered about that quite a lot. Sometimes, it seems to me that we're all organic computers, responding to inputs. However, the quality of one person's processor may be higher than that of another - so I think you're going to be looking at SOME people (at least), who can start to do their own programming.

I don't have any proof; just something I've wondered about as well.

yes, you are correct...

.

somehow, religion is supposed to make sense out of everything...

.

something like, god versus no god...