Don't Fight It, See Through It
Conflict, renunciation, and cancellation only increase suffering
“You must receive your demons, because when you fight them, you empower them.” —Anthony de Mello
Has anyone ever tried to get a reaction out of you?
“You’re looking really skinny, why don’t you eat more?”
“Are you blind? The light’s green you idiot.”
“You suck, maybe you should just quit.”
In that moment, you feel your face get hot as the adrenaline pumps through your veins prepping you for fight mode.
You want to put them in their place. Shut their mouth for good.
But at the same time, you know that that’s beneath you. That by reacting, you’re giving them exactly what they want:
Your precious energy and attention.
We’ve all fallen for it at some point in life. You react, you feel vindicated for a few moments, but then you feel low, annoyed, and frustrated. The friction can easily give off a spark, and before you know it your whole day is up in flames.
You’ve become the reflection of the person who put you down.
You’ve attached yourself to their low frequency vibration.
You may even try and get a reaction out of someone else to try and make yourself feel better. This only leads to more suffering.
Renouncing and cancelling come up equally as empty.
Uncle Fred is a menace
Imagine you become a vegetarian. You renounce meat and you think everyone else should to. Every time you see someone eating meat, you try to convince them why meat is bad.
You preach to your uncle Fred every Friday night while he’s manning the grill.
“Fred, don’t eat it. That cow’s tortured soul is going to haunt you ‘till you die.”
But every Friday night, right before Fred takes that monster bite of juicy, fat-sizzling steak, he looks up, catches your eye, and with a devilish wink, shoves that cow right into his mouth and down his esophagus.
“Damn you, Uncle Fred.”
The old Ricky is done
Picture yourself as an obese middle aged man named Ricky. Every time you look in the mirror, you feel the crushing weight of disappointment. You promise yourself that once you get in shape, the old you is done forever.
You hit the gym hard and in a year in a half, you’ve got toned muscles and a confident smile. But you forget about the journey.
Now, whenever you see Jerry, your over-weight neighbor, you flex your biceps and gloat, “I know you wish you had these pythons instead of those tiny garden snakes, Jerry.”
Jerry looks at his arms and sighs.
But soon, you slip back into old habits and gain back the weight you lost. “What happened to the pythons, Ricky?”
Every experience has a purpose
Engaging in conflict with someone gives them power.
Renouncing something gives power to what you renounce.
Cancelling a version of yourself limits your power.
Every experience has a purpose.
You can’t fight it. Preach the opposite of it. Or pretend it never existed.
Accept it, learn from it, and be gracious that it got you to where you are now.
A rude stranger, an asshole meat-eating uncle, and an over-weight version of you are nothing more than concepts and labels invented in your mind.
Perspective is fluid and transparent. It let’s you see through a situation instead of categorizing it as good or bad.
Change your perspective. You’ll feel all that tension float away like the fluffy seeds of a dandelion flower.