Two Idiots

 My great grandmother had a stroke when I was a little boy. I didn’t really know her before the stroke had happened. I spent quite a bit of time with her after when she moved in with my grandmother. I loved my grandmother a great deal. Still do though she passed away nearly 28 years ago. Her Mom was a pretty neat lady both before and after the stroke. What I remember most about her was that she loved to be contrary and argue with me. 

I absolutely ate that up when I was a kid. I couldn’t tell you what we argued about specifically these days. I feel like it was mundane nonsense like why the grass is green or why the sky is blue. She enjoyed getting the better of me. It never felt mean spirited or ugly. She absolutely shaped me with those little arguments. I got to be a contrarian who loved to fuss, debate, and argue. 

These days you cannot get me to engage in debate or an argument. Several years ago I got to a place that trying to argue about anything just felt like wasted energy. I quit talking about quite a few things. I quit writing about many of those same things. Politics? Not on your life. Religion? Can I get a Hell NO!? 

It doesn’t stop there though. I don’t want to try and convince anyone of anything. I do not want to change minds. I have come to avoid any type of debate or argument. I constantly remind myself when my very nurtured argumentative personality starts to rear its ugly head that,” When you participate in argument, there are now two idiots in the conversation.” That may or may not be a quote I read somewhere. At this point I do not want to bother googling it. I just know the mantra helps me protect my peace. 

I have found it causes me zero pain to mind my own business. I don’t have any need to correct anyone else’s world view or even their opinion of me. Do you think I am a huge waste of oxygen and wish someone would hurry up and unalive me? Awesome. Do you believe we should keep slaves and eat babies? Not awesome at all, but I am not going to waste my breath correcting your point of view. I won’t say a word about it. That doesn’t mean I agree. I don’t at all. Slavery is fundamentally wrong. I also suspect humans wouldn’t taste all that good. I feel no need to engage in that example conversation because the person speaking that stupidity is either dangerously insane or trying to get attention through shock value. It costs me absolutely nothing to stay out of the conversation.

This might be mistaken for an enabling or passive aggressive point of view. Don’t get it twisted. I am not afraid to engage wrong behavior. I just am not going to debate anything. Let me give a sane and relatable example. Over the course of my various relationships an oft debated topic was where and what to eat. I have had this turn into full on arguments. A few times it has been bad enough that one or the other of us just gave up and didn’t eat out of spite. My mantra of not engaging in argument might lead you to believe that I either a) suffer through an experience that I didn’t want to have or b) force my way. The reality is neither. 

I have not been going out to eat in order to control my diet and be more healthy. The rarity of the experience means that when I do go out I often have a strong suggestion that I have been craving. Most of the time no one has a problem with that because it is a treat. I take suggestions before I do my shopping so that everyone is getting their favorites at the dinner table. It helps that I also pay for the groceries, do the cooking, and do the shopping. Most of the kitchen cleaning falls to me while we are on the subject. All of that leaves very little room for argument. 

What I have learned from quite a few years of avoiding argument and debate is that silence adjusts situations much more effectively than argument. I will listen to complaints about my behavior. I will adjust what I can. I might even explain myself, which I absolutely hate to do. This hatred comes from unhealthy controlling relationships that I have had at various times in my life. I resent being asked to explain myself or even hearing repeated complaints to the point that I typically (and yes its unhealthy) just embrace silence and withdraw completely. If you didn’t accept my effort or explanations the first time or two then I don’t want to waste anymore time. 

Now to be clear, this doesn’t mean that I am mad at the other person. There is no judgement toward them in me putting some distance between us. When I hear someone say, for example, that I don’t give enough attention via text or I don’t hang out enough in the real world I will listen. I will explain why I am introverted and don’t get out much and the mental health behind it. If I am still causing pain, then I am going to withdraw. There is no reason to debate anymore. I care. I don’t want to cause damage, and I cannot prioritize your need above my own need to feel mentally and emotionally healthy. Is this selfish? You are free to make that judgement if you want. Tell other people what a bastard I am. No worries. You are likely right. At least the stress and drama is over. 

That is the real power of choosing my battles. I don’t find myself sitting around worried about making other people see things from my point of view. I don’t need that validation. I am super comfortable with other people disliking me or thinking that I am wrong. If they are willing to waste their energy worrying about me that is their choice. For my part, I don’t lose sleep worrying about much of anyone outside my immediate family. Life is too short to be caught up in unnecessary drama. No one is going to live rent free in my head. 

By not debating situations the people around me are free to choose if they accept me or not. I am willing to grow, change, and improve. I am even willing to listen and talk. What I am not willing to do is repeat the same old arguments… or even hear new ones. If a conversation turns controversial I am going to end it politely without attacking the other person or their logic. I probably am not going to be willing to discuss that again unless the emotions connected to it change. 

Emotions are the heart of why refusing to argue has enhanced the peace in my life. See, the person who sees me as neglectful of them isn’t wrong. That is how I am making them feel. That feeling comes from their perception. Perception is reality. Feelings are not ever wrong. They are subjective truth and cannot be debated, argued, or changed. 

The paradox is that I cannot always take ownership of how I make everyone else feel. The why behind my behavior is driven by my own feelings. They are not wrong either.  They are my subjective truth. We are all trapped living in our own feelings. It is good to have empathy. It is even better to not cause harm to others. If I can afford to allow another’s feelings to be validated at the cost of my own I will do so…within reason. If I don’t have that bandwidth then I am going to refuse and establish boundaries in one way or another. 

No matter how passionate an argument is, no matter how logical, or no matter how right you are never going to change someone else’s feelings through argument. Either they are going to passive aggressively allow you to win to argument and continue to feel the way they feel or the two of you are going to come to a stand still where each of you are stuck in the truth of your own feelings and unable to move from it. My experiences tell me that wasting the energy to keep at the topic is costly. I am going to drop it. I am going to let you feel what you feel. I am going to feel what I feel, but I am going to do that in silence. 

The important check to this behavior has to happen in self reflection. Water that does not flow becomes stagnant and cannot support life. I cannot cut myself off from the world with an attitude of everyone else isn’t worth arguing with. After all, if I wake up in the morning and run into someone acting like an asshole that is just bad luck. If I wake up in the morning and go through my day and everyone that I deal with is an asshole to me then I better start looking in the mirror because it is actually me that is the asshole. As people raise concerns to me I do search my feelings to see if I am using my feelings to justify wrong thinking or behavior. 

Relationships with others are extremely important. They have to be tended to and nurtured. I even know I am terrible at this. When I find myself avoiding an argument with someone else I turn to myself first. I hit up my journal. Yep. I am a forty-three year old man who writes in a journal. If you want to mock that feel free, but I might suggest you look at what is inside you that makes you feel insecure by the fact I want to be emotionally and mentally healthy by using a commonly suggested therapeutic and organizational tool. *steps off soap box* If I can work out my own feelings to a place that I am confident then I am pretty good to go. If not, I will talk to someone about it. 

Now this is a dangerous tactic. I don’t want to gossip. I don’t want to spread negativity or inspire venom toward another person. The point of this conversation is to square up my actions and thoughts. I have lots of friends that I trust to talk things through with. I also don’t want to find myself providing one side of an argument. Doing that just means I am arguing with another person without their presence. It is actually more destructive.

The goal here is to make sure that I can see things from the other person’s perspective. Empathy really does absorb tension. I might not agree with their feelings, but if I can put myself in their shoes I may be able to find a place to start a productive conversation. That is the opposite of an argument. It isn’t about splitting the difference or coming to a compromise that means neither of us are getting our way. For the neglectful friend situation a compromise would be that they accept that I have valid reasons to be distant and will continue to neglect them part of the time. That doesn’t really work for either of us. 

I never want to argue and be that second idiot. That doesn’t mean I just walk away and cut myself off from any and everyone. Disagreements and misunderstandings are just a part of being human. Me distancing myself is about respecting both myself and the other person by allowing them the validity of their point of view without reaction based confrontation. I can get some space, get my head right, and address things in the right way.

Or I can just ignore the ever loving shit out of a bad situation. That is one of my super powers. I don’t feel the need to answer or resolve anything. I can move on with my life quite happily without saying a word. I don’t waste energy on anger or hatred. I just learned to let it go. 

Now, go watch Frozen and suffer.