Why taking things personally never pays
Never take anything personally- ever. Someone’s face of disgust directed toward you tells you more about them than it will ever tell you about you.
Taking things personally is an act of dumbness- it’s an act that I, personally take part in full-heartedly every other day. Fundamentally conditioned to get upset by the silly things; we get upset by the way someone spoke to us, the tone of their voice or the angle of their eyes, it makes being human impossibly hard.
We are culturally ingrained to take things personally.
It’s difficult to believe that other people’s behavior is not caused by us. But it’s true. We take things personally because we want other people’s behavior to say something about who we are. But it doesn’t.
Take the scenario of Richard and Lucy. Richard treats woman badly because that is how he was brought up, his father didn’t respect his mother and this poor behavior became ingrained.
Lucy and Richard begin to date. Once all the fan-fair dies down Lucy can’t understand why Richard is so cold and nasty.
The thought cloud in Lucy’s mind will look something like this, “Richard treats me like sh*t because I’m not very … I should be more … so that he will like me”. But take that dot dot dot and fill it in with any two words you can think of- because this is what we do, we fill in the blank spaces with our wounds daily.
The reason Richard doesn’t like Lucy is to do with his personal taste, the reason he is treating Lucy like sh*t is because of his personal conditioning. Don Miguel Riz’s wrote about this ten years ago in his book, The Four Agreements.
We are anally sensitive to how other people, especially our loved ones respond. If your mother looks at you funny, you wonder what you did wrong? The answer to this question is always nothing. Your mother’s behavior is caused by her own sh*t in the end.
- Taking things personally is a waste of time and energy
- All interpretations are an act of creation; the weaving of a story that only exists in your mind.
- The things people do and say are based on their own personal history and beliefs. (Even if Lucy truly thinks Richard is an idiot, Lucy’s opinion is based on her own life, it’s not fact)
- People’s actions are their own, essentially we have no control over them and no action will stop people from thinking or behaving as they are
- It is impossible for someone else’s behavior to be about you
Next time you think it’s personal. Use the story you tell yourself to tell you more about your own personal wound. This is where it begins and ends.
Find yourself and think for yourself.
Go gently,
Be kind.
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