#29 Sweet lie, Indifference and Detachment
"It’s okay if you don’t support me”: a Sweet lie.
“It’s okay if you don’t support me”: Indifference.
“It’s okay if you don’t support me”: Detachment.
Actually, the most significant and subtle difference lies in how you feel—emotionally, physically and energetically—when you make this statement.
Words alone won’t suffice in diagnosing your position.
A Sweet Lie… It’s like bad faith.
This state is not difficult to identify, whether you are the listener, or the one making the statement. (Unless you’re speaking in denial and lying to yourself first—which does happen.)
Indifference and Detachment, on the other hand, are quite different.Often mistaken for one another as one would clumsily mistake salt for sugar, in reality the two taste nothing alike!
Indeed, these two modes have drastically different meanings and impact. Let’s clarify them:
Indifference… I have no feeling at all, I’m neutral, it’s a non-subject to me. If you hadn’t brought it up to me, I would’ve missed it entirely.
Indifference is usually an entry point and in many ways, you do not choose it—it chooses you. It’s neither bad nor good. It simply is.
Detachment… I care, and I accept when it doesn’t go my way. I’m at peace with it. I am not attached to a specific outcome.
Detachment isn’t usually an entry point.
This specific combination of full commitment + outcomes-detachment is, in my point of view, one of the most challenging and complex mindsets to implement. But when you do, it empowers you tremendously.
The concept of detachment entered the vernacular the moment we started self-interestedly tapping into the teachings of eastern wisdom to help us deal with the anxiety, stress and overwhelm that come with modern society.
However, if we are using Detachment as a tool for releasing pressure and performing better (and we are), at least let’s do so acknowledging and honoring what really lies beyond our reductive and trivial understanding of it.
Indeed, genuine detachment means TRUSTING in what life brings to you. (And we are never fully there, right?)
Now, do not fool yourself. In these 3 scenarios the journeys will be markedly distinct.
- “It’s okay if you don’t support me”: a Sweet Lie
-> I will find a way to please you, because I won’t be serene until you approve of it/me.
-> I will distance myself from you, whether consciously or unconsciously, because your lack of support is hurting me.
Upside: You trade dealing with a simple challenge… with a long-haul succession of even bigger challenges you’ll try to avoid over and over, until it implodes.
Downside: Whatever your main negative emotion is, whether anger or disappointment or sadness, you’ll continue to be in reaction to the world around you, which amplifies the risk of losing your path and wasting your energy.
Suggestion: Find the courage to tell the truth about what you feel, especially if you expect change down the line. In the end, when you deceive others, don’t be surprised when you eventually feel unseen or misunderstood.
- “It’s okay if you don’t support me”: Indifference
-> I will do it anyway, in exactly the same way.
Upside: You are unstoppable.
Downside: You miss the opportunity to improve upon your original endeavor with challenging points of views.
Suggestion: “Although I sincerely don’t feel the need to have your support, may I ask you some ideas to improve it?”
- “It’s okay if you don’t support me”: Detachment
-> I will do it anyway, in exactly the same way. I don’t feel any resentment towards you, and I’ll let you change your mind and support me later if you so desire.
Upside: You are unstoppable.
Downside: You get on your friends and colleagues nerves by looking so peaceful and unshakable (once again!).
Suggestion: Be cool with yourself whenever you could feel attached again. You’re not a Buddhist monk, you are human and therefore fallible. This ability to be detached will never ever be granted.
What’s your level of Detachment?
The sooner you start the better, because this is the ultimate power you should forge to feel truly at peace, and become incredibly efficient this way.