Just a few years ago, at the beginning of college, I used to allow myself to get so upset and angry about things because I took everything personally. Any time I ran across something or someone in my life with which I disagreed, or which I thought rubbed me the wrong way, I chose to let it bother me -- deeply so -- to the point that I was just always perpetually pissed off about something. And let me tell you, it was exhausting.
Then, sometime around the end of my sophomore year, and at a point in my life which has since proven itself to be pretty pivotal for a few reasons, I read a book by Richard Carlson called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (and it's All Small Stuff). It changed my life.
I learned that things are not meant to be taken so personally. I learned that I was actually the one choosing to get offended by views I did not agree with. I realized that the whole world did not, in fact, revolve around me, and what I thought was the one correct way to do things. I came to understand that life is entirely what you make it -- and that if you choose to make it an "emergency," as he called it, then that's exactly what it's going to be. Basically, I grew up a lot. And my life has been infinitely better, happier, calmer, and overall more enjoyable for me and those who are in it, ever since.
But what does that have to do with anything?
Well honestly, it has a lot to do with everything. You see, that moment in my life has helped change my perspective on a lot of things. Don't get me wrong; I still screw up on occasion and I am still very much learning as I go along. But I can clearly see progress from where I am now, compared to where I was then. If I had to choose one aspect of my life which has benefited the most from changes like these, it has got to be the way in which I react to things now.
Billions of people all over social media get offended nearly on a minute-by-minute basis nowadays. They watch something or read something, and their reactionary fingers are quick to the keyboard in anger. Have I done this myself on several occasions? You betcha. Did it make me feel better in the moment? Oh yeah. But was it good for my happiness and well-being in the long run? Did it help me in any way, with learning to let things go? Not at all.
Now, until recently in my life, I would have been the first person out of everyone I know to unyieldingly support the idea of political correctness. And why not? I value mutual respect in the political sphere, as well as between two human beings in their everyday interactions. To me, for most of my adult life, political correctness has always meant treating other people the way you would like to be treated. It has meant respecting one another's differing opinions and working together to not offend one another with things like slurs and bigoted comments. Being politically correct, for me, has long been something I value. Until recently.
Perhaps this is a part of my impending adulthood and the realization that it's not the bed of daisies some of us have always imagined it to be. But recently, I have reached the conclusion, that perhaps being politically correct all the time is not appropriate, after all. That is, I have arrived at the belief that there is a time and a place to be politically correct -- and that is about 98% of the time in 98% of the places -- but there is also, absolutely, without a doubt, and rightfully so, a time and a place to simply put your middle finger in the air and politely offer two words to those who may take issue with it. And that time and place is when it comes to your own damn personal opinion.
In my life experience, I find that we humans seem to get awfully caught up in not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. In fact, I have noticed myself tiptoeing around others before, in order to not offend them because I know their opinion is different than mine. And I have got to say: I've had quite enough of that in my lifetime, and I'm only twenty-two years old.
Put briefly, I'll explain: I have an opinion, and I have a right to have it. My opinion can be a lot of things. In fact, it can be any single thing in the world that I choose for it to be. And there's not a damn thing that says you have to like it. You don't have to agree with it. In fact, you can blatantly and grossly disagree with the very fundamentals of it. And vice versa. I can think your opinion is the most nonsensical, absurd, and downright stupid thing I've ever heard. But I don't have to agree with it, in order to understand that you have the same right as I do, to have it.
Furthermore, I can wholeheartedly disagree with you on something, and still choose not to react to it as if I have been personally offended by your differing opinion. This is a pretty heavy intellectual concept that I think many people fail to utilize in their everyday lives.
You see, before I read that self-help book a few years ago, I saw everyone who had a different opinion than me as a threat to my own stubborn belief system. I viewed every discussion on abortion, same-sex marriage, and gun control as a showdown of epic proportions, where I had to fight to the death (that is, until I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted) until I could persuade the other person that my opinion was correct and that they had so personally offended me before. I simply could not let it go when someone did not see every little thing in exactly the same light as I did.
Thinking and behaving this way cost me a lot. It cost me my happiness and peace of mind, it cost me sleep on some occasions, and it even cost me some relationships. It robbed me of the truly zen outlook on life which comes with knowing that not everything is intended to personally offend you or piss you off -- in fact, most things people do are done from their own self-serving intentions, without you in mind at all.
Once I realized and better understood that, I really did stop sweating the small stuff. I was able to comprehend that being politically correct is called for -- most of the time -- in a public setting, on touchy subjects, when talking to a large group of diverse people. But when it comes to my own personal opinion, and my own set of beliefs which govern my personal life, I can say and do whatever I want. And nobody else has to like it.
Everyone has an opinion. Chances are, out of some 7 billion people on the planet, you're not going to be able to find someone who agrees with you on everything. The more quickly you learn to accept that we all think and feel differently, and that there's nothing wrong with that, the more quickly you will realize that it's your choice to be offended by someone else. And in the grand scheme of your life, someone else's opinion really is the small stuff. And if you want to enjoy the kind of inner peace that everyone deserves, then you really shouldn't sweat it.
Letting things go is just so much easier than carrying around resentment and anger in your heart over the course of your life. So the next time someone says or does something that offends you, ask yourself if it is worth taking personally. Is it something truly offensive and politically incorrect, like Donald Trump hailing Hitler or yelling racial slurs? Or is this person simply exercising their right to have an opinion different than yours, the very same right you reserve for yourself?
