"In the practice of tolerance,
one's enemy is the best teacher."
- The Dalai Lama
I don't really think that I have enemies - at least, I hope that I don't - but I do have several people in my life who test me routinely ... and thereby enable - and some would say "force" - me to grow. I appreciate this opportunity, and yet I struggle to be grateful for it. In other words, I'm normal - or so a trusted advisor tells me - but I'm not as "good" a person as I want to be, at least not yet....
As I have aged, I have gotten a lot better at letting things go, especially the people who are not positive contributors to my life but who happen to be in it at my discretion. And yet some PITAs (Pains-in-the-A--) remain, typically because one doesn't have discretion with respect to their presence, as in they're work colleagues, family members, good friends of good friends or members of a shared community like a church, synagogue or mosque, etc. So they remain, usually challenging, occasionally petulant and/or threatening, always irritating. Hmmm ... what are we to do?
Rise above. Yes, we all know that we're supposed to do this, to summon our better angels and set the constructive, tolerant example ... but, really, who wants to do that?!? Why should I/we have to be uncomfortable and then have to stretch myself to become tolerant because so-and-so's a PITA (or worse...)?
Because we don't have any choice*, that's why ... but who likes to acknowledge this? It's far more fun/satisfying to complain about it. Actually, we kvetch/b--ch/rant about it, telling anyone who'll listen - and thereby be our enabler - about what a schmuck (or worse) this one or that one is. And, even though we're perturbed, it's nice to feel indignant, justified, superior and, most of all, righteous. Until you have to deal with Mr. or Ms. PITA again, then it's just annoying or frustrating or enraging or, truth be told, painful. And it's the anger that results from this pain that justifies us in our righteousness ... and yet, somewhere in our mind - sometimes in the back and others in the front thereof - we know that we're allowing ourselves to be hurt.
The PITAs aren't hurting us, we're hurting ourselves, or, actually, allowing ourselves to be hurt. And yet we prefer to think that our pain is involuntary.
Much wisdom tells us that negative emotions are bad for us - and we all 'know' this (as in we appreciate it intellectually) - and yet we go on indulging (ourselves) in them. After all, we all 'know', as actor and writer Malachy McCourt reminds us, that "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." And yet we resent. We stew. We harangue. We ... consider or sometimes fall into ... hate. (Thankfully, I have been saved from this last state as an emotional option both by my life experience and by some wisdom shared with me long ago from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King - "Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.") Hate is a choice, one best avoided at all costs.
So, most of the time, we just dislike intensely, allowing ourselves to feel the righteous resentment oozing within us ... to our own detriment, of course. A former assistant helped me learn this: She often saw me reacting fiercely and angrily to a person who routinely and purposely treated me in ways designed to provoke this reaction. Some time after one particularly enraging interaction, I made a complaining comment in passing, to which she responded by asking me a series of three questions. First, she asked, "Is this person thinking about you right now?" After a brief moment of consideration, I answered "no" and then, trying to save a little face, modified this to "probably not." Next, noting my exorcised emotional state, she asked, "Are you thinking about her right now?" Clearly the answer was "yes" but I simply nodded my assent, sensing, as I was, that she was leading me somewhere that I didn't want to go at that moment (which was, more than likely, back to sanity). Then, this young, sweet and mostly innocuous young lady moved in for the knockout blow by asking: "Who's winning?" Boom! Ever so sweetly and with the most positive intent, my former assistant schooled me in a life-changing and -elevating way. (Today we would say that she dropped some wisdom on me and then dropped the mic and walked offstage....)
Who's winning, indeed! Of course we know that we're not winning when we allow ourselves to wallow in righteousness and rage, but it's just so hard to let it go. It feels a lot better to be angry and right than to let it go and move on. Funny how committed we become to justice in our own time when we feel that we've been wronged ... and yet modern science confirms that all we're doing is hurting ourselves. Without getting too deeply into the science - feel free to do your own research if you'd like - suffice it to say that when we're angry, we change our own physiology, including by involuntarily increasing the level of chemicals in our bodies that can be hurtful if they are too present for too long (like the hormone cortisol). Yes, we feel more flush and "alive" in the moment of our anger - c'mon, let's admit it, most of the time (righteous) anger feels good! - and yet we're actually harming ourselves because prolonged exposure to elevated levels of these potentially toxic chemicals can do serious damage to our bodies - and our souls - over the long term. So, if for no other reason than we don't want to let PITAs rob us of both precious life now and in the future, we need (to learn) to let them and their drama go.
But it's so hard! Recently, a childhood and FaceBook friend posted a meme that reminded us that "Everyone you know is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always." The very first comment from friend of his (whom I did not know) was "I know this is true - but sometimes it's so hard!!!" Yes, JJ, it is. And yet it's crucial. For our own sake. For our own salvation (as in saving our own soul).
It's here where our free will enters the picture and, when coupled with perspective, can be greatly helpful to us. In these situations, I remind myself of one of my favorite bits of wisdom to guide me (and, if you choose, you):
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms -
to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
- Holocaust survivor, psychotherapist and author Dr. Viktor Frankl
in his classic Man's Search for Meaning
Dr. Frankl reminds us that we always have a choice. No matter how annoying, frustrating, enraging and/or painful a situation may be, we can always choose to forgo anger and hurt and rise above it. In fact, we have two transcendence options: first, we can simply choose not to let a situation bother us, similar to the British maxim to Keep Calm and Carry On (or, if you prefer, the more Buddhist-like alternative of choosing to keep your zen...); or, second, we could choose to react proactively by embracing the situation and looking for and leveraging the learning/growth opportunity.
An example of both options in practice from my experience:
I live in New Jersey, the Garden State. It's a wonderful place (and, thanks to our bad PR, too few of you realize this so you choose to live somewhere else, thereby not compounding one of our biggest challenges, which is...) ... but it's also crowded - it has the highest population density of any state - so, let's just say that driving on our roads can be and usually is an eventful experience. In fact, if you haven't been cut off or subjected to some head-shaking-inducing move by some other driver in the last few minutes, you're probably parked or asleep at the wheel. I've just come to accept that in the beloved home state of my adulthood driving is always going to be exciting ... and often for the wrong reasons. So provocative encounters are a given. The question is how will I/we choose to react/respond?
Option One tells us simply to let it go. When someone cuts you off ... let it go. When someone takes 'your' parking spot ... let it go. When someone weaves from lane to lane in front of you because he or she is texting, talking on the phone and/or putting on makeup - yep, I've actually seen someone do all three of these simultaneously ..."Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!?! - and let it go. Clear. Simple. And yet oh so hard to do....
Or we could go further and choose Option Two, to find opportunity and meaning in the situation. So often when I am cut off now, I say a silent blessing for the other person/'offender'. I wonder what could be leading him or her to be so dangerously inattentive and/or rushed and pray that whatever it is it resolves itself so that he/she can be more careful and thus attentive to life. What this choice means for me is that I find myself doing a lot of blessing ... and thereby feel greatly blessed, because in appreciating and choosing not to be ensnared by others' stress I can let go of my own.
I am often struck by the contrast: the person hugging my bumper at 75 miles per hour or passing me on the left and then cutting over three lanes to make the exit a quarter-mile ahead on the right is clearly feeling stressed (or, at least, is in a place where poor and potentially deadly judgment is dominant) ... and so I feel thankful that I am not so encumbered. Yes, I may have some concerns of the day of my own, but at least I'm not so distracted by them as to be putting my life and others' lives at risk so blatantly. So I say my blessing, thank God that I'm in a better place and then often drift into a mindful appreciation of my other blessings as I continue to drive. It's weird (and yet wonderful): I've gone from being one of those hurried, dangerous offenders in my younger years to being grateful for the opportunity to reflect on my blessings when provoked by someone like I used to be. Driving is now often a mystical, spiritual experience in total contrast to the rushed and stressed experience that it used to be. I most often arrive at my destination refreshed and enriched by the experience of reflection, a blessing and benefit of a better conscious choice. Since I am (more) mindful that I can always choose my own way, I invariably choose to feel gratitude and thereby enrich and enjoy the gift of my life in a more satisfying and meaning-filled way....
So, what do you choose? Do you choose to rise above by letting go? Or do you choose to transcend by searching for the blessing in every opportunity? Either way life is better ... and it's in this perspective that we find the will to be more tolerant and thereby to access the blessings from this choice.
Now, I would like to tell you that I've achieved some similar sort of zen-like reserve in all aspects of my life ... but I haven't. I'm still working on translating this learning from the literal road of life to the metaphorical one. But I am making progress ... and therein lie both the lesson and the blessing. So next time that I'm provoked, I'll be more conscious of my options and, hopefully, will choose a better one. Not always - as I said, I'm not quite as good a person as I want to or can be yet - but more often than I otherwise would now that I have been gifted with this awareness and perspective. And being better at choosing is so much better: it feels so much better not to be as emotionally dramatic, it feels so inspiring to know that you can be voluntarily transcendent, it feels great to know that you alone determine your own way.
So I close with the wisdom of one of my favorites, Stephen Covey. As so often has been the case in my adult life, I am moved, inspired and elevated by his wisdom. And in the context of this meditation, his insight seems both germane and guiding:
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose.
In those choices lie our growth and our happiness."
- Renowned author and 'self-help' guru Dr. Stephen Covey
Choose. Choose tolerance. Choose growth and happiness ... which really means choose Life and Love....
* Actually, we do have a choice, always. And yet, we 'know' that we shouldn't make choices that are life-threatening, so it's in this sense that I suggest that we don't really have a choice (but to seek the life-affirming response in any given situation...).
