“Keep in mind that it isn’t the one who has it in for you and takes a swipe that harms you, but rather the harm comes from your own belief about the abuse. So when someone arouses your anger, know that it’s really your own opinion fuelling it. Instead, make it your first response not to be carried away by such impressions, for with time and distance self-mastery is more easily achieved.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion.
We are all different. We have different values – we place different levels of importance on things. It is therefore our choice as to how much importance we choose to apportion to opinions and acts of others that are intended to be harmful. A highly-sensitive person will differ from the thick-skinned person. But if we choose not to pay as much importance to these occasions, it follows that we’ll also not pay that much attention to them either. “So what?” we will ask ourselves.
If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Make the importance of these challenging moments so distant in time and space that they really can hardly be heard at all anymore.
