Food for Thought: Fighting Battles

A little food for thought for you today!

I was watching a minister here, who has a church on the West side of town. I like him because my Aunt likes him, so I watch him from time to time.

I heard something on Sunday that has had me thinking all week:

"You never become exceptional by fighting the same battles.  You cannot be going through the same conflicts with the same trifling folks. You either demand that they grow up, or you demand that you yourself grow up, meaning that you choose your battles wisely. You learn what to ignore and learn what you can handle."

Wow. I scratched that down on a piece of paper before I forgot it.

That is a really loaded statement.  Each of us could write a thesis on that statement. A really long thesis.

There's a lot going down in that statment. I think the sermon was about fighting your battles (addictions, issues, etc) and getting through it, so you can go on to the next phases of your life. There will always be new battles to fight, new things to overcome.

But it began dealing with your battles with people... the ones you're fighting over and over, and there's no progress.

I think what I find interesting about that statement is that it's not one-sided.

Either somebody else is the problem - these "trifling folks"...

Or YOU yourself may be the problem.

In other words, it calls for some degree of self-assessment and the willingness to be honest with oneself.

And that is one thing that I notice about myself as I have gotten older: my tolerance for fighting the same battles has gone waaaaaaay down. I don't go through the same old vicious cycles with people. That is no longer tolerable. Anyone who knows me well knows that I won't allow anyone to exasperate me for long periods of time. And I will cut folks off with the quickness.

But before I get ghost, I take quite a bit of time to assess myself...

I ask myself: "Am I the problem here?"

If I'm being honest here, I assume that I am being the problem. I've gone so far as to try to make the other person happy. I try to apologize. All kinds of stuff. But it's not good enough. And that's fine.

We won't be fighting these same battles. No sir.

And I've told people before that if I'm causing you this much trouble, why are you even being bothered with me? I mean you gotta talk about me, run my name into the ground, call me everything except a child of God...

Why do you even want to be bothered with me? Obviously, I'm detrimental to your life.

Imagine that. Me. Detrimental to someone's life.

And to paraphrase the statement above... This Oldgirl can't grow by going through the same ratchetness over and over again with folks. Nope.

That's what it means to me. At this age, I have learned what I can handle and what I can't. I've learned what I can ignore and what I can't.

When it comes to my ownself and personal situations...

And when it comes to people.