If you decide to feel battered by verbal blows, that’s your fault
We choose to be offended, it’s not inflicted on us
‘The world around you, with its rich colours, textures, odours and sounds, is an illusion, a show put on for you by your brain. If you could perceive reality as it is, you would be shocked by its colourless, odourless, tasteless silence. Outside your brain, there is just energy and matter.” — Neuroscientist Dr David Eagleman.
Last week I slumped down on the couch after a big day at a new job and groaned, “I’m shagged”, to which a person in my family (who will remain nameless) responded, “You’re only shagged because you haven’t worked this hard before in your life.
“You’re always doing ‘work’, but not proper hard work like this — not like I do.”
I take pride in not allowing insults to affect me. I believe offence is not inflicted or imposed upon us by someone; it’s a choice we make. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
He went on to ask, “How much more suffering is caused by our response to an offence than the suffering caused by the offence itself?”, as well as, “Choose not to be harmed‚ and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed‚ and you haven’t been.”
The above is true, but even the best batsman occasionally loses his middle stump. Israel Adesanya is brilliant but still gets kicked in the face. The most robust defences will fail. When it happens, top athletes look for a fault in their technique to work on. They use the defeat to improve.
When you feel hurt, you can initiate a similar performance review. Take a moment to contemplate why you allowed noises in the air or symbols on a screen to injure you. Don’t waste time responding to the person who commented. They don’t matter at this point. A lack of response not only buys you time to sort yourself out, but it’s also a great comeback.
“If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?” — Epictetus.
Why did I get butt-hurt over a comment on how hard I work? Maybe, because, like many Kiwis, I pin my self-worth on it. We believe providing for our families is our purpose. It often starts with your first child. You witness what the mother has gone through to create a new life.
You’re in awe of their sacrifice in growing that miracle inside them and their bravery in birthing it. Then you watch them caring for your baby in a way you can not. You’re a bit superfluous at this stage, so you decide to do what you can and take on more work to support them. You finally have meaning in your life.
You can stand tall as a provider, and it feels great. After many backbreaking years, if someone suggests you don’t work hard enough, you get upset. This is weakness. If you get triggered by sounds processed in your brain as “not enough work”, it’s time to uncouple your self-worth from other people’s opinions of your employment. If a comment is accurate, learn from it. If it is false, move on. Whether the insulter is ignorant, malicious, or misspoke, that’s their issue to deal with. All they did was produce an acoustic wave in the energy and matter outside your brain. Now it’s inside you; perceive it how you see fit. If you decide to be hurt by it, that’s on you.
After my detailed internal performance review, my findings on Workgate are as follows:
While any suggestions I don’t work hard enough are false, I have added some things to my to-do list. One, a partial disconnection of my ego from my employment, and two, further manifesting myself in line with the wisdom of great Roman Emperor Aurelius as “THE ROCK THAT THE WAVES CRASH OVER. I SHALL STAND UNMOVED AS THE RAGING SEA FALLS STILL AROUND ME!”
That’s what I yelled in my mind. What I said aloud was — “Who’s hungry? Don’t worry; you sit down. I’ll make dinner.”
A victory for me, inside and out.