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Tickling the Tiger

17 May

Right is right, and wrong is wrong. This is undeniable. In a lot of cases we all agree. For instance, murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, and cheating is wrong. But the trouble is, except for the extremes, what I think regarding right and wrong may not be what you think. I’m clear on my values, and you are clear on yours. Putting them together, they may not match, and there’s the rub. But we have to make our own decisions regarding right and wrong. We each have the privilege of choosing for ourselves. I may not agree with what you think is right, you may not agree with me. That’s the reality of living with others.

Whatever we deem to be right for us, deserves our respect. If it’s something we value, we need to honor it. Otherwise we can twist our lives up in ways that make it hard to discern not only right from wrong, but where we are, and where we’re going. Sometimes, we make decisions that skirt the line, and find ourselves in situations that threaten to compromise what we really want. For instance, if we are married, we may determine that extramarital affairs are wrong. We’re not going to do that. But then someone at the office that we’ve noticed several times, asks us to lunch. It’s not like it’s a date, it’s work. We don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, so we go, and have a great time. Then, because we had such a good time, they ask us again the next week, and we go again. Before long, we find ourselves lunching, and chatting with them on a regular basis. And then we feel it – that pull. The draw to get closer to them. And the thought of an extramarital affair creeps into our thoughts, and unless we’re very careful, we may begin to entertain it. We’ve gone all the way from believing that was wrong, to possibly now, considering it.

If we don’t draw a hard line between what we determine is right, and what is wrong, we may find ourselves in situations like this. We’re tickling the tiger, hoping it won’t bite. Getting close enough to the edge to feel the thrill, and sure we won’t step over the line. Of course, we all know how that goes. Once we’ve crept so close to the edge, it’s very easy to take the final step. We’ve all seen this, or even experienced it. After the situation has gone too far, people often say things like, “It just happened,” or “I couldn’t help it,” both of which are patently untrue. Nothing just happens in situations like this. We plan for them, step by step, inch by inch, and despite the danger we keep going forward.

Today if you feel your values being tested, if you think you might be stepping away from what you truly want for yourself, stop. Just stop, and think again. Don’t risk destroying the choices you’ve made, the person you want to be, or compromising your future. Make your decisions carefully. If you’re tickling the tiger already, thinking about doing something you know is wrong for you, stop now, and re-evaluate the long term ramifications. Nothing we do disappears the instant it’s done. All our decisions stay with us. Forever. Your choices are valuable, and critical. Make them well. You’ll be happier if you do. Tickling the tiger is only fun until it bites. Then the scar lasts forever, and you will never be the same again. Remember who you are. Choose carefully. Create the future you really want by choosing well today.

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Burning Bridges

16 May

Bridges are great when you need to cross over to get somewhere else. We can’t drive through the river, but we can drive across the bridge over the river to get to our destination. Our relationships with others are like bridges too. We need the people in our lives to make the connections that take us where we want to go, help us get to our goals, and bring us happiness. Sometimes those connections are personal, sometimes they are professional, and sometimes they are emotional. Without our personal bridges, we stand alone.

I had a friend several years ago who had a great job. He liked what he was doing but got involved in a romantic relationship with one of the founders of the company. Things didn’t work out, and their relationship ended badly. After that, he said nothing he did was ever good enough, and then one day during a big meeting, he lost his temper, said some horrible things to her and the others in the room, and walked out, never to return. Afterward he regretted what had happened, and I asked him if there was any way to repair the situation. He said, “Nope. I’ve burned that bridge.”

As we navigate our lives, there will surely be times when others will hurt us, and damage our relationships with them. They do things we can’t accept, or they say things we can’t forget. Sometimes we decide the damage is too great, and we decide to end all contact with them. We are too hurt to allow them to stay in our lives. So, we burn that bridge. We cast it up in flames, say goodbye, and decide we’ll never come back.

But life is funny. As we go forward, we may find ourselves looping back around to where we were despite our best efforts. Our jobs change, and suddenly that person you severed all ties with becomes your co-worker, or worse yet, your boss. Or you move to a new location, you start over, and then you see that person who hurt you so badly is your new neighbor. What will you do now?

Burning bridges is a dangerous game. We never know where our lives will take us. We cannot read the future. We don’t know what developments lay ahead. It’s possible that the bridge you’ve burned will return to your life in a way that you’ll need to re-establish the connection. And if you’ve really turned away, it may be hard to reconnect. People come and go out of our lives all the time. It seems wiser then, instead of burning a bridge, to simply take a step back away from it.

Today if you face a situation where someone has crossed a line you cannot tolerate, where someone has gone too far, and you feel like extricating them completely from your life from here forward, you may want to burn that bridge. You may want to tell them off, tell them you are done, and tell them never, ever, ever to come near you again. Before you do that though, take a moment and think carefully. Perhaps the better choice is just to keep your distance from them for a time. Just walk away for a while. You don’t want them in your life as they are now, and you need space from them. But don’t burn the bridge – they may change, your lives will certainly change, and you never know what the future will bring. Leave the door open a little for now. Then if they return back into your life, you can decide how far you will let them in. And the bridge to allow that will still be there. Burning bridges is a dangerous game. Be careful how you play it.

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Free Space

12 May

Our world is a busy place. We have a lot to do every day, and no matter how much we get done, there is more waiting for us. We are glued to our smart phones, iPads, day planners, and calendars. We constantly check our email, voice mail, Twitter, and Facebook, and a dozen other things. It’s an invasive and constant situation. Of course, life hasn’t always been this way, but the technology age is here, and whether we like it or not, we are part of it. When we add our daily routines of work, chores, errands, gym, walking the dogs, cooking, cleaning up, and everything else we have to do, it gets exhausting, and can be overwhelming. After a time we need a break.

Taking time for ourselves is not just an option, it’s a necessity. We need to plan for time down, without the electronics, without the phone, without the pressure. Just time to recharge, and rest. For some of us that may include time spent with family or friends. Or it might mean an outing to a museum, or gallery. We might decide to stay home, and just veg on the couch with a good book. If we have the time and resources, it could mean a vacation trip to someplace we’ve always wanted to go. Whatever it means to us, whatever it takes to rejuvenate ourselves, that’s what we need.

But in order to make it happen, we need to plan for it. We need to write it in our day planners, enter it into our smart phones, and if we’re working, we need to request the time off. Once we have it planned we must commit that no matter what happens, outside of a natural disaster, atomic explosion or death, we will follow through, and take the time.

I have a family member who works constantly. He is always extremely busy with one project or another. He makes lots of plans, and he completes them. He goes to his regular job during the day, and when he finishes there, he starts working on the project of the month. He is always coming up with new and ingenious ideas, which are great, but he seems unable to see that all he does is work. He is not married because he doesn’t have time to date. He doesn’t go on vacation because he has too much to do and can’t ‘find’ the time. He rarely visits his family because he doesn’t want to stop the progress he’s making on item A, B, or C. He works constantly. As a result, he is always tired, and he has few friends. He isn’t happy with his life like it is, but he says working this hard now will ensure that in the future he’ll have the freedom he wants. Well, that might happen. Or he might find that this will become his lifelong model, and he’ll never stop to get to that freedom.

No matter how much we do, we will never be completely done with what comes next. Life is a continuous process. There is no end until we die. Work will expand to fill the time we give it – no matter how much time that encompasses. We can work 24/7 if we like, and we still won’t be done. So, either we control the work or the work controls us. If the work is controlling us, when do we get to live our lives?

Plan for time down. Plan for it. And then take it. Take the time you need to recharge your batteries. Turn off the phone. Turn off the computer. Shut down the iPad. Forget about Twitter feeds, and what’s happening on Facebook. Go outside. Take a walk. Take a nap. Go skateboarding. Go surfing. Play tennis. Do whatever makes you happy. Take time apart from your usual schedule to restore. If we can do this regularly, we will have more energy when we return to our busy lives, more excitement for what we’re doing, and more happiness in the long run. This life will take everything we give it. We need to make sure we give something back to ourselves.

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Take that!

9 May

I have a friend who is generally nice, and amiable. But when she gets angry, she has no boundaries to what she will say or do. She says things that are vicious, and destructive to make her point. She goes way too far. I asked her about this, and she said she does it so the argument will end quickly. “If you crush them, they give in, and the fight is over,” she said, and in some ways she’s right. I have another friend with the same model. If he ever has a disagreement he, too, goes way too far. He uses a cannon when a flyswatter would have been enough. He says and does horrible things to hurt the other person, and it’s always destructive. He also says that he does this because it ends the fight quickly. And he likes returning to the relationship after the destruction to patch everything back up, and make it better. He likes that part a lot. It’s like a personal destroy, and recovery mission.

There could be no worse models for handling disagreements than these, and yet despite discussing the situation with them several times, they are either unable or unwilling to change. And so it continues. I’ve had many experiences with both of these people through the course of our friendships, and when they get angry and say horrible things, and make destructive comments way out of the scope of the disagreement, I am so stunned that I naturally end the conversation. The argument is over quickly, which is their goal – but the pain, and damage from the conversation remain. As a result of these behaviors, whether they acknowledge it or not, their relationships with others suffer. After they attack someone, it takes a while for the injured party to recover, and begin to trust them again. And sometimes they won’t ever trust them again, and decide instead to let the relationship go.

If we go for the jugular in our disagreements, if we go too far for whatever reason, we may lose more in the end than we want. People are flexible to a point. They will allow us to hurt them to a point. But once that point is reached, they may walk away, and abandon the relationship. So the question comes, is it worth the cost of a friendship to make a point? Is it worth losing someone we value so we can win? There is nothing to be gained by crushing others because of a disagreement. We may feel powerful in the moment, but that power is an illusion. The only power we are really displaying is the power to destroy a relationship. Anyone can do that. It’s not powerful at all. So, is it worth it to win the argument at any cost? Perhaps we need to rethink that. Perhaps the real power is when we use discretion and respect, and protect the relationships we cherish, even in conflict.

We all disagree from time to time. We all let others down sometimes. We will naturally argue, and we will have uncomfortable discussions. Unless we are fighting for our lives, there is no justifiable reason to destroy anyone we are disagreeing with. It’s just a disagreement. Sure, maybe they let us down, maybe they hurt our feelings, or maybe they did something truly horrible. No matter what they’ve done, trying to destroy them will not restore what has been lost, or repair the situation. It will probably make it worse. If we lose our self-control, and if we lose the relationship altogether, winning the argument won’t be worth it.

Today if you have a disagreement with someone, even if they’ve been horrible to you, remember that what you do is your decision. You may vanquish them, stick the knife in their heart so to speak, but what will you gain afterward? Will it be worth how you feel about yourself later? Will it be worth losing a friend? Think before you throw that spear. Think before you say those words. Think. Will it be worth the cost? What do you really want to gain?

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The Best Revenge

5 May

Revenge – Something we all think we want when we’ve been hurt. We are angry, and we want to show those that hurt us that we can hurt them back. We want them to suffer as much as we have suffered. We want them to feel worthless, and rejected. We want them to feel pain. Sometimes we want them to feel a lot of pain. When we’re plotting revenge, we absolutely do not care about what is right or wrong. We just want to get even. Make them pay. Settle it once and for all. They started it, and we’re going to finish it.

On the outside, revenge seems fair. They hurt us, so now we’re going to hurt them. If we get back at them, the playing field remains level. And after all, fair is fair. Sometimes we buy into that, and go for the throat, and inflict all the damage we can. But if we think about what revenge really is, we realize it’s just a way to bring ourselves down to the level of the one that hurt us. Taking revenge just means that we are willing to mimic their bad behavior, and make it our own. We are willing to become them – the ones that started it. That’s really all revenge is. Getting even means standing on the same ground, and being the same. So to get even, we have to drop to their level. If we think about it like that, revenge doesn’t have the same punch. Nobody really wants to be less than they are, not even to get even.

There is a way to get back at those that hurt us without becoming like them, without lowering ourselves down to where they are. And it’s effective every time. All we have to do is look up, live better, rise above the fray, and with grace and composure, settle the score by not buying into the game. Refuse to play. It’s seems counter intuitive at first when you think about it. How can we get back at someone for hurting us without hurting them in return? We do it by standing tall, taking a breath, and letting it go. We do it by becoming better despite the pain. We do it by being more noble than they are.

There is a saying that the “best revenge is living well.” And it’s absolutely true. What could be more annoying to someone who has hurt us, than to see us succeed? What could be more galling to them than to see us happy? There is nothing that will bother them more or longer than that. Hitting them back, going for the throat, is a temporary fix. We might feel better in the short run, but the problem will still be there. Living well is the only way to permanently end the battle.

Today if someone hurts you, be calm, be polite, smile, be gracious, and do what will make YOU happy. Live happily. Live well. Keep smiling. It will drive your enemies crazy with envy. Your grace and success, and your happiness will hurt them more than anything else you could do. And really, what better revenge could there be than that!

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