I think I have finally discovered the downside of fairness and righteousness.
When you want things to be fair, you expect people to act and behave in a certain way. And when they don’t play fair and are not righteous, you want to “fix” things. You want them to happen according to your rules of a fair game.
What if you just let them?
Let them cut the line and move in front of you in the supermarket queue. Let them insult you and hate you. Let them do the bad thing they want to do.
That doesn’t mean you encourage them, but you don’t act based on their actions.
If someone cuts the line, let them manifest that rude behavior and have things their way. You don’t need to reflect back their behavior. Just let them cut the line.
If someone insults you, let them say how many bad things they want to say. You don’t need to say anything back. Just let them say whatever they want to say.
If someone does something bad to you, let them and do your best to avoid getting physically injured. Don’t do anything to them.
When you let them, two things happen.
First, they have the opportunity to learn whatever they had to learn.
In their behavior, they find their lesson. If you don’t let them, you take away that lesson from them. If you do something in response to them, they move their attention from what they did to your response and, because of that, you limit their awareness.
Second, you train yourself to maintain the same level of energy.
These days, our attention span feels like a joke. We can’t maintain anything for longer than 30 seconds but we expect to experience long-lasting happiness. When you restrain yourself from responding to what others do, you become still. Through that stillness, you achieve a state of mind and energy that will bring you peace.
Yes, things should be fair. But they’re not.
And things not being fair is the opportunity we need to learn from how we act in response.
Let them but set boundaries
Let others be rude but set boundaries.
What others do to you because you let them should be the exception, not the rule. And you address whatever bad things others do to you through boundaries.
No human is perfect. But having boundaries is the easiest way of making sure you keep in your life only those who respect you.
With love and optimism,
David
Photo by Gene Gallin on Unsplash