The need to perform, the fear of sanction

External voices provide security. Cover. They provide the feeling that ultimately it's society that bears the risk. That appears the bargain.

But in reality, society often takes the credit and delegates the risk. Everything from our contemporary financial system to our criminal justice is constructed on this fundamental approach.

It leads to endless tension. Both of a need to perform and a constant fear of sanction. We wouldn't raise our children in that pressure cooker, but we deem it appropriate to build our societies in that way.

An alternative route may not be to seek to change that system, but to address our relationship with it. The fact of consequences can't be escaped, at least not easily. But our relationship to it perhaps can.

Perhaps, we can conclude that our internal rules and values can be our own, we can act in a way that is consistent with our internal compass. And the outcome, well that isn't in our hands.

It leads to an acceptance, a surrender and ultimately a huge release of tension; dismantling the need to perform or the fear of sanction.