Back in the 1970s, I read a book by the author Ken Keyes, Jr. titled “Handbook to Higher Consciousness”. One of the things I remember that he wrote in this book is that that you create just as much discord in this world when you take offense as when you give offense. I have always found a lot of truth in this statement.
In 2001, popular self-health author Wayne Dyer wrote a great book called “Pulling Your Own Strings”. To be honest, I never read the book, but I did read the summary at the back of the book. In that summary Dr. Dyer posited a situation where John had a date with Mary, and an hour later she still hadn’t shown up. In this scenario John says to himself “Mary makes me so mad when she shows up late.”
Dr. Dyer here makes the point that Mary doesn’t have the power to make John mad at all. A more accurate statement by John would be “I make myself so mad when Mary shows up late”.
In reality, this is the pure truth. Sure you can huff and puff and talk about how bad people can act and how they frustrate you, but in the end you decide how you’re going to react to what they do, or else you can be at effect to the actions of others.
The wonderful part about this point is that if you assume responsibility for how you feel when certain things happen, and say ”I am the one who makes myself unhappy”, then you have reclaimed your power.
The obvious result of this reclamation of your power is that you can then choose how you react to events. Try as you may, the matter how powerful you are, you can’t always control your environment. You can’t control what people are going to say to you. But you can control how you react, and thus empower yourself.
Back in October of 2016, there was an article on the Yahoo news titled
“A Woman Fat-Shamed Me On The Subway — And I Fought Back”.
Basically, this lady (who I will call “the writer”) had been on the subway on her way home from having dinner with her brother, and was carrying a box of chocolate cookies. At some point, a woman tapped her on the shoulder and said “You’re so lucky, just eating whatever you want and not caring. I’m a dancer so I can’t do that.”
This likely was a totally-innocent comment based only on the lady carrying cookies, and having nothing to do with her weight. In fact, there is no way that the dancer could have known all of the abuse and self-doubt that the writer had experienced.
The story continues with the writer telling about her lifelong struggles with being overweight. And even as I write this article, I feel some sadness that she has this suffering to bear.
She queries:
“Do I tell her I saw my first nutritionist, started counting calories and working out at the gym when I was twelve?
Do I tell her that every day is a battle to love myself?
Do I tell her that I’m still half convinced the last guy I dated didn’t want me in the end because I was too fat?
Do I tell her that the fact I am on a subway carrying a box of cookies is one of the bravest things I’ve ever done?
Do I tell her that she has just made one of my biggest nightmares come true?”
Do I get snotty and say I can tell that she doesn’t eat much because of her wrinkled skin?
In the end, she just said “Fuck you!” to the dancer.
What occurred to me when I read this story is whether the dancer had no malevolent intent at all, conscious or unconscious. I question whether a real possibility is that the dancer was really seeking some appreciation for the fact that she was not only a dancer, but a dancer at some advanced age. Maybe she felt bad about herself, perhaps being old and lonely, and she was hoping for some compliment. Instead, she was told “Fuck you!”.
I want to strongly emphasize that I in no way criticize the writer for her reaction to the dancer’s comment. Based on what she tells in the rest of the article, the writer has endured a lot of fat-shaming, and thus her reaction is understandable.
She also was insightful enough to write in her article “I started to replay the encounter on the subway in my mind. Was she right? Was it me and not this poor stranger who was in the wrong?”
At this point, however, I ask you to consider another way that this story could have turned out. Suppose for a minute, if you will, that the writer had been able to experience the dancer’s comment in a totally-objective manner.
Imagine that the writer had responded with ”Oh, you’re a dancer? What kind of dance do you do?” They could have had a delightful conversation with the writer having felt great that she had shown interest in and encouraged the dancer, and the dancer having felt great because someone had shown an interest in her.
The more we are able to work on ourselves and be in a conscious place, the more we are able to keep peace in our own lives as well as in the lives of others with whom we interact.
We interpret the world based on our own beliefs and it is very easy for us to project negative intentions on other people’s actions.
How much better would our lives be if we made it part of our personal growth efforts to always give the other person the benefit of the doubt. To not assume that they meant to hurt us. To instead look for a possible innocent reason why they acted or said what they did.
I propose that you consider doing this and see how much better your life can be. You’ll be glad you did.
