Taking Things Personally, The Paradox of Giving and What’s Wrong with You
A medley
I enjoy this format because it allows me to express half-baked ideas I carry around in my head. I hope you’ll like it too!
Taking Things Personally
I know someone who manages to take everything other people do personally. That is a sign of immaturity. A version of: Can you believe this happened to me or Can you believe this person did this to ME are tell-tale signs of the world-revolves-around-me mentality.
Yes, I can believe this happened because people do what they do. The world does what it does. You either accept it or you let it go, but if you allow resentment to build, it’s on you.
If other people don’t behave or are the way you would like them to be, communicate it. If it doesn’t work your job is to decide whether you can live with it or whether you can’t.
Don’t expect anyone to change for you. You can’t even change for you. The world and others will never adjust to your view of how it should be.
I feel like it should go without saying, it’s not just black-and-white and it’s easier said than done. However, if you get triggered all the time, it’s definitely you.
If someone came to me when I was 14 and told me I looked like a giraffe I would have gotten offended because I was insecure about my height (I’m 183cm which is tall even for a Lithuanian). If somebody told me this now, I’d laugh because I think it’s the coolest thing that I’m tall.
The Paradox of Giving
Choose to give from love, not obligation.
If we give because we feel we have to, resentment builds. We keep score. It creates expectations that unmet, upset us. Giving someone time and resources hoping to get something in return is icky. You can feel when someone’s sharing to make you feel indebted.
But an authentic relationship, be it romantic or otherwise, is based on giving freely. You share time, resources and energy because you want to give. Giving adds, not subtracts from your experience.
Giving to get something in return comes from the energy of lack. If I give in order to get, I will never get what I want, such is the paradox of the Universe.
Dealing With the Small You
What’s wrong with me? — sometimes I wonder and it’s such an ego trip because, on some level, something’s always wrong with you. The question itself sets me up for failure. Then — incessant fixing, meddling, making yourself better. But no one taught you that you cannot fix what isn’t broken. No one taught us that you’re not the thing you think of as you anyway. You’re the presence, the awareness that holds this whole world together. The space beyond emotions, thoughts, conditioning, experiences… that infiniteness cannot be broken. But we forget.
Every step you take in life towards bettering yourself will always be the very first step you’ve ever taken. But the ego doesn’t like that — it lives in the linear illusion of time so when you face a challenge you’ve faced before it says ‘I have already fixed this. If it shows up again, this means something in me is broken.’ But every moment, every scenario, every pattern lives only in the now and the only way to respond to what’s arising is from the present moment. When I respond from the past, I am not dealing with reality, I’m dealing with self-generated suffering. Fighting reality, fighting what is, is always a losing battle. I have fought and I have lost, again & again. But in the here and now, every problem arises anew. To paraphrase Churchill, Life is facing reality over and over again without losing your enthusiasm.
