It's Not Me, It's You

Jacques de Villiers – writing quest: Article 53/365

I’ve noticed a trend in my life over the last couple of months. I seem to draw discourtesy towards me. This is ironic since courtesy is one of the values I most esteem.

It typically happens to me when I’m in conversation with someone.

Just the other day, a person inserted herself into a conversation I was having. When she left, I commented that I thought it was discourteous. Big mistake, I was speaking to a ‘spiritual guru’. He basically said that I attracted this to me because my pride and ego were offended. And, I needed to explore that.

I get it: I need validation. I need to be seen. I need to be heard. My inner child is fucked up. I need to welcome my petty tyrants who expose every vulnerability I have. I also get that there is guilt because I’ve been discourteous in my life too many times to recount. Maybe karma is just bitch-slapping me for all the times I’ve been rude.

I’m supposed to welcome the discourtesy because it allows me to grow.

There’s a narrative that when someone behaves like a toss, and it triggers us, we should welcome it. It’s easy to quote Carl Jung because he’s right: “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

But, I sometimes feel that there’s judgement from, particularly, the spiritual sorts. That you’re the toss for not seeing it from the other toss’s viewpoint (walking in their shoes) and you’re a toss for not allowing the other toss to teach you the lesson, that evidently, ‘you so desperately need’. In my case, dealing with my fragile ego. So, essentially, I’m the problem.

And, this is essentially true. 

But there’s a piece of me, the Mr Hyde to my Dr. Jekyll, that wants to call bullshit on it all. My Hyde wants to ask if there is still something called courtesy left in the world and why do we have to tolerate rudeness?

Do you ever remember breaking up with someone and using the cowardly (yet true) term, “It’s not you, it’s me?” My Mr. Hyde wants to say, “It’s not me, it’s you.”

Jacques wants to say, “You’re unconscious, you’re rude and you're a toss. Wait your turn, I’m busy speaking.”

But it is impolite, politically incorrect and ‘unspiritual’ to say that, isn’t it?

And, by not being able to say how I really feel is how Mr Hyde grows in me.