I Choose My Own Battles

Defending one’s rights, what we think is right or what we believe we deserve is useful and practical most of the time. This way of relating is known in psychology as assertiveness and it is very common for patients with low self-esteem or interpersonal problems to use it for a therapeutic purpose. The truth is that if we were always passive and submissive, conforming to everything, the world would be quite stagnant. Another issue is the battles we are immersed in.

To achieve certain things, we sometimes have to “punch the table”, show our nonconformity and try to show that our point of view is also important and valuable. So far we are certainly in agreement, the problem is that often the situation gets out of our control and we fight “battles” that shouldn’t even exist.

Why do we create absurd battles?

Human beings like to feel important and, above all, like their wishes to be fulfilled in their own way.  We are used to saying to ourselves absolutist and dogmatic phrases such as “there should be no lines in supermarkets, checkouts should be faster, they are useless!” or that “the nurse should have been nicer.” In many cases, we end up getting into absurd battles.

The constant “shoulds” are nothing more than demands we make to the world and to others, and in the end they lead to a very unpleasant emotional state.  We are usually anxious or angry and consequently act in a way that benefits no one. Far from solving our problem, we turned it into an authentic battle.

It’s all in our heads, as there is no reason in the world why things don’t have to be as they are in reality, since they already are. And only I, through a magical and false thought, convert something desirable into an obligation to the other and a necessity to me.

Tolerance or conformism?

So the reader will think that, in order not to provoke pathological emotional states, we have to conform to whatever comes up, and that this puts us in a position of puppets, which move according to external events. Nothing further from reality.

The key is to develop tolerance for things that are not so useful, or not at all important.  Whether or not there is a long line at the supermarket checkout is insignificant, we cannot classify it as a misfortune. But it makes us angry, we get tense and anxious… is it worth it?

This tension often leads us to even have a lot of childish attitudes that certainly don’t get us anywhere, and in addition we will still be rejected by people who are not at all interested if we are in a hurry, if we are nervous or irritated.

How do I tolerate what bothers me?

To learn to tolerate everything that bothers us, we can follow the following advice:

• Learn to Detect Your Automatic Negative Thoughts: When you find yourself in a situation that is certainly not important at all, such as a night when your neighbors decided to listen to music a little louder than normal, stop and reflect on your thoughts. Are you imposing your opinion for things to be otherwise? Do you tell yourself this is intolerable? If the answer is yes, you are acting like a deity, a superior being who can judge others and make things different. But the truth is, this is just a fantasy and exists only in your head.

• Begin to change your thoughts for others that fit the world as it is,  rather than what we childishly intend it to be: Instead of speaking in terms of shoulds, speak in terms of preferences. Instead of saying something is intolerable, tell yourself the truth, that you are already tolerating and putting up with what bothers you.
• Employ a sense of humor in situations that we don’t like or that are unpleasant: Humor defends us from almost all blows, especially everyday ones, and makes difficulties more bearable.
• Relationships are like gears, if we change, the other also tends to change: if I notice that a doctor is unsympathetic and treating me in an unpleasant way, I can force myself to be nice and kind to him and most likely his attitude will change. Love also disarms and transforms relationships.

So don’t get carried away by emotions in a situation you don’t like. You have to rise above that and learn to choose your own battles.