And Tochi Says… Whose thoughts are YOU thinking?

Call it ultra-sensitivity. Call it resentment. Call it unforgiveness. Call it whatever we want, but when we allow past negative experiences with people to negatively impact how we deal with the people we are with right now, we are living with a chip on our shoulder.

This is not about using the lessons learned to prevent future injury. It is not about being about doormats for others to wipe their feet on. This is about shutting ourselves off from potentially beautiful interactions with others because of resentments from what some others did to us in our past. This is about missing out on opportunities because we shut ourselves off from everything and everyone we are afraid of. This is about imbibing wholesale stereotypes – “Women always…”, “All men…”, “White women like to…”, “Black men are fond of…”, “Those Hispanic people…”, and so on and so forth to justify what we do and say.

• When you find yourself telling the same story of personal injury, over and over and over and over again, in response to why you are not doing something for yourself or for others, stop right there. You are living with a chip on your shoulder!
• When your repertoire of anecdotes solely consists of how people deceive, steal and destroy other people, stop right there! You are living with a chip on your shoulder!
• When you are always full of tension, and you cause tensions in other people because they are not doing what you want the way you want it when you want it, stop! It’s time to offload that chip on your shoulder!
• When you feel that people are always attacking you whenever they express their own opinions to you, disagree with you or give you unexpectedly sincere advice that you asked for, my friend, you are living with one mighty chip on your shoulder.
• When you can count more enemies against you than friends with you, you are living with a chip on your shoulder. Deal with it now!

This is the thought: There is an African proverb that states: “If you cover your eyes because the bad people are passing by, how will you see when the good ones come by?” What does it profit you to live with that chip on your shoulder? It is all right to be propelled by anger to achieve great things and overcome obstacles, but when anger turns into resentment, we need to check ourselves. Resentment is like a boomerang; aimed to hurt the receiver, it must return to harm the sender as well. Lose the chip. This life is too short to spend it making more enemies than friends.

The image used in this post is courtesy of the contributors to Creative Commons. I am immensely grateful.

Written by tochi

I am a change agent who encourages people to think for themselves.

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