Stairway to Heaven: Don't Take Things Personally

When I was writing “The Lazy Woman’s Guide to Just About Everything” with my friend Bridget Fonger, I tried not to read any “self-help” or inspirational material. I know my mind is somewhat like a sponge that indiscriminately picks up whatever it touches. This can be useful, but it can’t be controlled. Often it is something that I only realize I remember when playing a game like Trivial Pursuit. Then I don’t even know how I know something, or where the information came from. I wanted to avoid unknowingly plagiarizing.

One day when I arrived at the cute little cottage where Bridget was living at the time, she was on the phone. I sat down next to her desk and was greeted by her dog Charlie. After our hello encounter he went back to his toys and I looked over at the book on her desk. She had mentioned really liking it and I liked the cover art so I picked it up. It was “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. I opened it to check out the format since we were beginning to debate the format for our own book. As I flipped through the pages I read this bold print: “Don’t take anything personally.” This was right up my Lazy Woman alley. What a simple yet profound statement. It went along with our commandment number five, “You can either be right or be happy.”

Bridget’s call ended and we got to work, but my spongy mind didn’t forget. That was all I ever read of that book, but I use it often. Over the years I shared that advice and recommended the book to several people plagued with resentment. A man I meet at the pool at a dude ranch in Wyoming was sharing about some of his family issues. Yes, I am the kind of person who seems to have this type of exchange with random people! It was a very brief encounter but I shared the wisdom from Don Miguel Ruiz and recommended the book. Several days later when we were about to leave, he came up and told me what a powerful impact that advice had already had on his life. He had been applying it to the relationship that had been troubling him, and it had already made a huge difference.

When I think about what it is that often creates contention in my life, it is not so much the event, but the reaction I have to it. Even the everyday things like criticism by my husband or children can create waves if I take it personally. Now, I’m not saying there isn’t any sting, a momentary flash of “how could they think that about me?” But the genius comes in the letting go of the “insult,” the choice to not take it personally. I have been consciously practicing this for quite a few years and it makes for a much more peaceful life.

Once, we went for a weekend visit with friends who had retired to an amazing bucolic spread. We had a beautifully prepared dinner, warm conversation and retired to our lovely guest quarters. When we woke in the morning we found that our hostess had been called away on an emergency, so we spent the rest of the weekend as a threesome. This was a bit odd, but fortunately we didn’t take it personally and enjoyed the rest of the trip. Several years later, we got the same invitation and joined our friends for another weekend visit. Another beautifully prepared meal, welcoming after dinner chatter and lovely guest quarters awaited us. When our hostess wasn’t there in the morning, again called away on an emergency, it was impossible not to have some mind chatter. I thought back on the night before, but couldn’t come up with anything that we said or did that could have been problematic. There were no heated debates or secrets revealed over too much wine. Frankly, it was all so pleasant that it was a mystery. Not taking it personally made it possible to enjoy another long weekend.

These two strange encounters were a warm up for a very odd event that happen more recently. I had only one sibling, my brother Paul, who died suddenly in his early fifties. His wife and I had never been real close but after he died she became more involved in my widowed mother’s life and therefore in mine. For at least ten years we shared season tickets to the theater, a gift from my mom. We also spent time helping my mom through her last years. My sister-in-law helped with her finances and I did all the doctor’s visits and medicine. We actually spent more time together, including whole family events like birthdays, holidays and weddings, but after my mom died we could go months without contact. Usually, I called the week before a theater date because the tickets came to me. When I called both her home phone and her cell phone and got the “no longer in service” message, and her email could not be delivered, it didn’t take me long to put together the pieces.

Over dinner at our last theater outing she had told me about how she and her long time boy friend were planning to move permanently to his retirement home now that they were both retired. We chatted about retirement, how to downsize and future plans. She also brought me a small box with some of my brother’s family mementoes. Now, this had never been a relationship I would call close. I am more of an open book, and she was a little hard to read, but we had been through some challenging times, and we worked well together. It was only after she moved without telling me and leaving no information on how to reach her, that I realized she was moving on, without including any of her late husband’s family. What a perfect opportunity to “not take it personally.” This is what she wanted as she moved forward in her life. Any one else can have opinions about what she could have or should have done, but why judge, it’s her life. I wish her well. I hope she is happy.