There are three things you shouldn’t get upset about.
- Someone telling the truth
- Someone telling an untruth
- Someone stating an opinion
Getting upset is best reserved for malevolence you haven’t been able to avoid. (And Priority One, above getting upset, is getting the hell out of there, so basically save your upsetness for later.)
By extension, there are four things that are pointless activities:
1. Don’t try to fix the world by shouting the truth at the top of your lungs
Many good people want to stop the decline. Whatever area they’re in, they’re seeing a decline. And they might be right, we’re apparently near the midpoint of a 70 year cycle that started in the ’90s. Back then we were at the peak, then you get approximately 35 years of decline, followed by a new stretch of upward motion. It’s a sinusoid, with various other cycles (7 years, 12 years, 250 years) all overlapping.
But here’s the thing: shouting the truth doesn’t stop the lies from running around. If anything, it’ll make it worse. Did you ever notice how, in a large group of people, the volume slowly goes up up up? People start talking louder, eventually even shouting, to be heard. And there you are, shouting the truth. Assuming that you know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. At that point, all you’re doing is contributing to the noise. It’s pointless. Setting the record straight is a useless waste of your energy. Figure out the truth, live by it yourself, and leave the room.
In fact, you should definitely ignore me, too. We haven’t met, I have no clue what your life is like. I’m just blogging for my own enjoyment and satisfaction. I’m just noise, too, in your life. Don’t correct me when you think I’m wrong. Just shrug and move on. Your time is too precious to fix other people’s minds. Your own mind is your top priority.
2. Don’t talk about things you weren’t a personal eye witness to
Stick to this one and your world becomes small and very peaceful. Switch off the news, stop following opinionated people, stop telling and retelling stories you didn’t witness with your own two ears and eyeballs. If you repeat stories you haven’t personally lived, you’ve got about a 99% chance that you’re telling an untruth anyway.
If your angle is to learn how to live your own life, most pieces of news, stories and opinions are useless to you anyway. If you found something genuinely useful to find yourself health, wealth and happiness, by all means tell a friend or a spouse. But don’t become a messenger for someone else’s mission. Don’t be a parrot. (And forgive yourself when you do, because human minds are porous and it’s pretty tough to avoid copying other people’s behavior. “Monkey see, monkey do” is said for a reason.)
3. Don’t judge people
The hardest one of all. Stop judging people. Individuals, groups or the anonymous “other”. We all know the stories that are being parroted. We all know what it’s like to give advice when none was asked. Whoops. That’s judgment too, you know. Worst of all is talking about someone you’re not even close to. At best, they’re misguided stories, at worst they’re slander. And in many cases, it’s jealousy. We’re not that far removed from the sins from the Bible here, and the Bible wasn’t wrong. In many cases, what we say when we have an opinion of someone else, is “Do they deserve to be happy in my opinion?”. If the answer is no, you are not their friend and you’d best just move on and focus on building your own life.
4. Don’t act in a destructive manner
I think in essence, malevolence is finding enjoyment in destructive behaviors. Some people’s eyes just light up when they say something mean. Have you ever noticed people like that? Some seem to like it even better when the other person didn’t quite get that what they said was a mean remark in the first place. Such behavior is just the first step in a long (slow) road downwards.
No opinion
If you focus on abstaining from these four things yourself, you won’t have time to get upset when others do them. You’ll just shrug and walk away. You’ll find that in many cases, you actually don’t have an opinion at all. That’ll take some time, though, because you were trained to have an opinion. When someone asked you a question, your task was to provide them with an answer. (Not answering tends to upset a certain type of people who can’t stand to be alone with their thoughts. They can’t stand silence and those people are loud.)
Silence not an option? I’m telling you now, that it is. Silence is the best option of all. Leave the noise behind. No need to explain yourself. No need to defend yourself. No need to make right any wrongs. Just move on and live a peaceful, quiet life.