pick your battles wisely

Until I was eighteen, I had a bad habit of letting people walk all over me. Anyone and everyone. And I would forgive them in a nanosecond if they so much as smiled at me. Once I turned eighteen I decided that this had to change. I was going to be strong. Confident. And I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone push me around.

But unfortunately I quickly swung in the other direction after that. No battle was too small for me to fight, nothing was too unimportant to let go.

It wasn’t until this weekend that I realised that maybe this was just as detrimental as my old childhood attitude had been. Because this weekend I found another battle to fight. It was simple thing, a not-very-big-deal-at-all thing, but I got fired up like usual, ready to make sure that I would not be wronged.

But for once, rather than getting more and more fired up as time went on, a few hours later I just felt tired. Tired of fighting every single little battle that came my way.

It was time to grow up and wave the white flag. So I did. And while I had to give in to something that I thought completely unfair, I felt a million times better than if I had turned it into a thing. Life is too short to let people use or wrong you, but it’s also too short to fight every battle. It doesn’t make you weak; in fact, sometimes it takes more strength to swallow your pride and let go.

If someone has said something hurtful, without ever intentionally meaning to hurt you, or even if they were simply inconsiderate, such as being late to something you thought was important, you need to stop and think: how important is it? Is this something that you will forget in a matter of hours? Was it simply a mistake, something that happens rarely, and was meant without any malice? If the answer is yes, then maybe it’s time to take a big breath and let it go. If the answer is no, and you feel that you are often being treated like this, then maybe it’s time to (politely!) tell them how you feel.

But often we are so on guard, particularly if we have been hurt often before, or given in too many times, that we end up jumping at every little thing. And inadvertently hurting people who never meant any harm in the process.

Sometimes you need to give in and move on. You need to save your strength for what is really important, and learn to take life and yourself a little bit less seriously.

Here’s to choosing our battles wisely.

(Image credit: 1.)