Everyone wants to be cool all the time. Nobody is cool all the time. So nobody gets what everybody wants. What a waste of fucking time. I want to be nice all the time. I want to say nice things that make people happy, that make people feel seen, so that the world can become a better place. Love will increase. Suffering will decrease. Not linearly, sadly. But over the long haul, the trend is upwards. I want to contribute what I can.
But again, nobody can be cool all the time. So there will be times when you think you’re saying something nice, but it isn’t perceived that way. Love does not increase, and suffering does not decrease. This only happens sometimes. But I don’t like it when it happens. It makes me feel all crawly. And then I feel like I’ve made somebody’s day worse, not better, and that’s a fucking terrible outcome. So then I get in a tizzy, and start trying to do “damage control”. Sending messages and shit, sometimes faster than the replies come, so they stack up, and I keep thinking of really important things to say, and by the time they get back to it, there’s like five longish messages waiting. Now they really are annoyed.
So instead, you have to try to be cool all the time, even though you will definitely fail some of the time. So, say there’s been a mishap of some kind. An unfortunate misunderstanding, perhaps. So you just hafta play it cool. Don’t spam them. Chances are, whoever it is will get over it quickly without your intervention. Let it be. Sometimes not doing a thing is the best thing you can do. If it continues to be a problem, then you can maybe say something about it. But you’ll be saying it from a position of deeper understanding of the issue, than if you’d said something immediately.
I hope we can all learn a valuable lesson here.
Ethan Abides 