Is Your Current Struggle Worth It?
You can’t win it, and you probably don’t want it, here is why…
Me: Did you see?
You: What?
Me: How the world is unfair!
I’m a left-handed in a right-handed world. I have to slightly twist my torso to grab the handle and open the door or to validate my bus ticket. I have to control the small buttons on my car radio with my weak hand and use something else than the spacebar to jump with my Skyrim character.
I don’t know what inequality you are fighting for but have you thought about left-handed?
Poor little Julien, when he was drooling at the thought of having this mouse. You know, the kind of wireless one with lots of shortcut buttons. A productivity game-changer, as the tech YouTubers said.
This mouse, I was about to buy it one day! Until I realized it was only available for right-handed.
What I’ve done?
I’ve started a movement on Twitter. It’s a community that fights for the right to access left-handed mice. Within a month, thousands of people gathered around this great cause, and some exchanges of messages with Logitech, the holy grail. A true. Beautiful. Left-handed mouse.
Ok, In reality, I’ve done nothing. I tried for a week to use my mouse with my right hand. It didn’t work, so I gave up. It’s a stupid example to illustrate two broader phenomena.
Do You Want This Battle?
This battle was annoying and the possible outcome as well, I prefer writing, reading, and exercising. But at least, it would have been a battle I’ve chosen. It’s a rare thing nowadays, people don’t choose them anymore.
Life is short. All the more that we spend most of it doing things we do not choose. You will spend about 25 years sleeping and 3 years in the toilet. For what’s left, choose your battles wisely.
Projects exist because we are in search of meaning. That feeling of doing something we enjoy and pursuing a shared ideal is like the smell of freshly baked pancakes. It motivates us to wake up.
The flame that burns in the hearts of many has been extinguished. Now people have no projects to lead, no fight to engage in, and no war to win. In this nihilistic period, they seize the least cause to take sides.
By doing so, their flame lights up again briefly, but at the price of critical thinking. They don’t think. They take for granted what they heard and spit it out at others like parrots.
These lost souls are trees without roots, tirelessly looking for stability. Which they find. Only for a short time before wandering again in search of meaning.
Their fire, having found a new breath, always ends up choking.
Fight for something that will ignite your fire once and for all. Find values important to you. These are roots. Only from roots can bear an anchored tree, ready to grow despite wind and rain.
Once this is done, you will lose your “fight or flight” reflex. You will be able to think again. You will better choose your battles.
Do You Have a Chance to Win?
Whatever you want in life, the only way to obtain it is to sacrifice something of equal value. Do you want to eat a cheeseburger? It will cost you money or working time. Do you want a friend? Don’t expect one if you just wait. You win a friend by giving him as much as you receive from him. Life is built on exchanges, not gifts.
Stop asking for the cake and eat it too. There will be no left-handed mice because we are less than 15% of the market and, we don’t come to offer anything in exchange. Unbalanced requests like this one never succeed.
We will tell you that everything is possible with hope and a little bit of motivation. Linda Brown, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King participated in a profound change in American society marked by segregation. We need people like them when there is so much to sacrifice. You’re not one.
You don’t want to be a hero with a big “H.” They are exceptional people who have gone through lots of suffering. Do they have a happier life than you? Certainly not.
You are not exceptional. You are a piece of meat among billions of others that can only think of itself and other close pieces of meat. From this narrow view of things, you concluded that you were special, but you’re not.
Be realistic. Are you ready to do the needed sacrifice to win the fight? Because most of the time, you’re not. You expect that the simple fact of wanting legitimizes your request.
You are selfish. You don’t analyze, and you don’t want to understand. Because it bothers you, you think things have to change. That’s not the reality.
Have you a chance to win this battle? In other words, are you ready to do what’s necessary? Changing what’s in our control is harder but often the best option. Don’t engage in battles you will lose anyway.
“To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the Master said, If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.’ — Anthony de Mello”
Further reading from me :
I’m active on Twitter too.