This short-story idea came to me recently.

I don’t take it terribly seriously (as you can probably tell by my Disney media additions), but I thought about actually writing it more as I’ve had trouble changing some bad habits that were leading me into a cyclical distress abyss (BTW that’s my real definition of Hell – feeling all trapped in miserable machinations of our own making).

And while I watch other people do the same damned thing (and while my tendency is to usually try and tell them what to do ‘cause, that’s easiest) it just reminds me how much work I have to do on myself. It’s an ongoing process – that change – and it’s an ongoing revelation that I shouldn’t try to cue others on how to change.

That said, here’s a fun social hack for when someone tries to tell you, “Well, what YOU need to do is… and DON’T do that…” Yeah, I get annoyed even typing that out. I’ve heard it so much my whole life, I wanna punch the screen. But instead of getting angry and responding derisively with sardonic laughter and the words, “Try practicing what you preach, asshat!” see what happens if you employ any of these replies:

1. Does that help when you do it?
2. You’re right! (if they’re right)
3. Oh. Okay.

princessbride

All’a these will throw them off course beautifully. You’re not waging a war that ends up in irrelevant nitpicking, so you can stay on task: cutting short their attempt to seek a false sense of sorcery by controlling you.

I mean, that’s all it is right?

If someone cares about you – really cares – they ask how you’re doing before offering insight. If they’re just motivated by something they’re missing, they’re focused on themselves and just using you for that end. So they don’t bother to ask. They just bark blind orders – like putting together furniture without even reading the manual (unless it’s IKEA furniture – then the manual’s pointless too).

At best, some kindly get-off-my-back hacks make your verbal assailant identify what’s inspiring his delusion about controlling reality by orchestrating others’ actions.

At worst, he’ll hone in on someone else’s psychological lunch money to steal.

Or – you realize he’s right and say so. (Check the look on the other guy’s face when you about-face suddenly.)

It’s tough to break the congenital combat-habit response.

murder

Change can be really uncomfortably tough.

But Einstein once said, “If being a shit-for-brains got you into a mess, that same thinking won’t get you out of it.” I may have misquoted him slightly there. But the point is – it doesn’t matter what mistakes your father, step-mother, boss, annoying coworker, unemployed boyfriend, or grandma’s pool boy ever made. When we carry on excuses for what others did or do to avoid employing the solution, it’s like carrying a torch on a pathos path. We keep infusing flames of woe into every interaction and (god forbid if you breed) inoculate a whole human petri dish with it – from the ground up.

Doing wrong with good intentions when ignorant of the truth is forgivable.

Continuing wrong and ignoring the solution once truth’s revealed to you?

That’s a serpentine Lombard Street into a hell of your own paving, my dude.