Life is replete with events that will play on our fears, which will tend to manifest themselves in anger. If we look at any moment of anger in our past in an honest way, we will see that the underlying emotion is fear caused by a sense of lack of control. The driver next to us swerves into our lane nearly causing a wreck. Our adrenaline starts pumping and the fear of potential injury sets in. At this point we have a decision to make – to be grateful nothing happened, let the adrenaline run through our system and go on our way or to be angry and flip the person a one-finger salute risking an escalation of what most likely started as a mistake.
Your teen-age daughter arrives home from a date several hours late. The thoughts of all the possible scenarios have run through your mind playing on your fears for hours. As she skips through the door with what to you is a stupid grin on her face as if nothing has happened, you have a choice. You can lay into her and yell at her about how irresponsible… what the … blah, blah hell was she blah, blah …damn-it! Or you could choose to sit her down and explain how worried you were and the reason you were worried is because you love her and how she won’t be using the car for a week or going on a date for a month and you hope next time she can show you that she is as responsible as you think she is as you give her a hug and tell her how glad you are she is alright – but she is still grounded.
What I want to illustrate is the fact that we have a choice as to how we will react to ANY situation. We can choose to allow our fears to take control and manifest themselves in anger, or we can choose to identify our fears, and realize that they are just fears and deal with them appropriately.
The same principle applies to being offended. When we allow our self to be offended, it is because an event has played on our insecurities (fears) and our response is indignation, hurt, anger, revenge or any combination thereof. Being offended is a choice and choosing to be offended is the weakest response to a threatening event. It requires no effort other than allowing the offensive scenario to play in our mind and our insecurities will take it from there. The choice was to allow our self to be offended. On the other hand we can realize that when an event takes place that plays on our insecurities, we can choose to see the reality that the event is only an event and it has no reflection on who we are.
The case where a person directly attacks another verbally is a classic scenario where most people take offense. The Barbequian philosophy is that one person’s insult is only their manifestation of their own fears through anger – it has nothing to do with the reality of the person being attacked. The recipient of a verbal attack can choose to be offended or choose to realize that another person’s words are just words in frustration, a reflection of how they feel about themselves, but third party words cannot change who we are.
As we implement the Barbequian philosophy in our life, we will notice that we conduct our self in a calm, easy-going, manner and we will be our Self with quiet confidence as we come to appreciate our divine nature. When we are in this state, we cannot be hooked into anger.
Another aspect of picking your battles is not allowing yourself to be drawn into an argument. An argument is nothing more than a contest to prove who is right. A friend of mine is a great example of someone who will not argue – she has no need to be right. If she has a differing point of view on any given subject, she will merely say something like “what do you think about …? Or how do you feel about…?” Rather than feel the need to be right and prove it, she will merely ask questions and listen to the answers with an open mind. She knows that another person’s point of view is just that, and if they see it black and she sees it white, then it is black to them and white to her. By asking questions, she can understand why they see it black and not white. There is a big difference between a friendly debate and an argument, and while a debate will open up a world of new possibilities and points of view, an argument is a narrow-minded approach to imposing a point of view regardless of the possibility of alternatives. In Barbequia, a friendly debate on a controversial subject, or any subject, is welcome while the participants are of open mind and have no need to be “right”.
Last but not least, prioritize what events you will allow to put you in a reactive mode. Life has a multitude of small fires to put out or tasks that could be done at any given time. It is important that we prioritize the things we do and things we react to so as to not sacrifice our values and goals for short-term distractions. A while ago, I was engaged in a conversation with a friend about a very personal matter he was going through that was having an effect on his relationship with his wife when my phone rang. Of course we are conditioned to answer the phone when it rings because … it’s ringing – so I did. After about 5 minutes of meaningless conversation on the phone, I returned to the discussion with my friend to find that he no longer was as interested in speaking to me about it. I gave a higher priority to the phone than to what was really important at the time and I lost an opportunity to share in the life of someone I care deeply about. Since then I have become best friends with my voicemail. It is okay to not answer the door or the phone if what you are doing is important. Hell, it’s okay to not answer just because you don’t feel like it. Pick your battles and reduce your stress.