Choose Your Battles Carefully

Defending our own rights, what we think is right or what we believe is worth defending, is generally practical and pragmatic. This way of relating to yourself is known in psychology as assertiveness. It is a very common therapeutic target of patients with low self-esteem or interpersonal problems. Being assertive is certainly a positive thing. If we were always passive and submissive and if we were always adapting, the world would come to a complete standstill. A subject of a completely different order, however, are the battles we sometimes get involved in.

In order to achieve things, we sometimes have to ‘put our fists on the table’ and try to make it clear to others that our view of things is also important and valid. The problem with this is that the situation often gets out of hand and we cause ‘fights’ when it really wasn’t necessary at all.

Why do we start absurd fights?

People want to feel important above all else, they want everything to always meet their needs exactly. We tend to spout absolutist and dogmatic things like ‘There should be no lines at all in the supermarket. The cashiers should work faster. Why don’t they even hurry?!’ Or “The nurse should have been kinder.” In many cases, this gets us into absurd battles.

All these statements are nothing more than all kinds of demands we make of the world and others. And in the end, they put us in a rather unpleasant mental state, usually fear or anger. As a result, we behave in a way that is not beneficial to anyone. Far from solving our small problem, we turn it into an authentic battle.

This is all in our heads. After all, things are how they are. Our wrong thoughts turn something that is desirable into an obligation to the other person or to reality.

Tolerance or Conformity

We don’t mean to say that we have to adapt to everything all the time. On the contrary. Conformity is for cowards. It’s never good to be passive when it comes to the things that really matter to you, and it’s certainly not good to get carried away with everything. That you just do things whether you like it or not, whether it matches your values ​​and interests or not.

The key is to develop tolerance towards the things that are of little or no importance. Whether or not there is a long line at the checkout is something that hardly matters. We cannot see this as a problem or a setback. Yes, it bothers us, it makes us tense and nervous… but is it worth it? Tensions of this nature often make us act like little children and provoke rejection from those around us who don’t care if we are in a hurry, nervous or bored.

How do I tolerate things that make me uncomfortable?

To learn to tolerate all those things that make us uncomfortable, we can take the following advice:

• Learn to recognize your automatic negative thoughts. If you’re in a situation that isn’t that important objectively, like when your neighbors decide to turn the music up a little louder than usual at night, ask yourself what’s going on in your head. Do you demand that things should be different? Can you hear yourself saying this is unacceptable? If the answer is yes, it means that you are setting yourself up as some kind of god, a superior being who can make judgments about others and force them to do things differently. However, the truth is that this is only in your head.

• Start replacing your thoughts with thoughts that adapt to the world as it is and stop childishly expecting the world to be different. Instead of saying “This should be so-and-so,” you can just say your preference. Instead of telling yourself that something is unacceptable, just tell yourself the truth that you can just tolerate certain things that make you uncomfortable.
• Use humor in those situations that you don’t like or that aren’t desirable. Humor softens just about everything, especially those mundane annoyances from our daily routine. Plus, it makes adversity much easier to bear.
• Relationships have a certain interaction. When we change, the other person also tends to change. If you notice that the doctor is unfriendly and that he is treating you in a way that you don’t really like, try being friendly yourself and you will see that his behavior will probably start to change. Love is also disarming and can transform relationships.

Don’t get carried away by emotions. Be careful in choosing your battles.