Putting everything in place vs letting it go

Hello people. For today's story, please allow me to share a little something with you as I had a little mental breakthrough last night and I just love these moments of clarity, that Eureka moment when you go, "ah, I know how it works, I figured it out." It's so brilliant and so beautifully simple that I want to share it with you. I have dealt with this in an earlier post before, but I suppose it is such a useful life lesson that I think it was definitely worth revisiting this issue.

Is your head a tidy place or is everything in a mess there?

Let me start the story back in Paris where I was working at the beginning of November. I stayed next door to this young 23 year old Parisian woman who was a party animal and one night, she invited all her friends over, got horrifically drunk (I could hear screaming, laughing, bottles smashing) and had loud sex in her room. I ended up having an argument with her at 2 am over the noise - not nice. I didn't get an apology the next day - she was just like, "oh I am young, I have a social life, this is what young people do, young people want to have fun and yeah we party, I am just living my life the way I do, I don't care if you are next door, don't cramp my style old man, you're boring." (That's right, Limpeh is officially a boring old man, d'apres elle.)

Needless to say, it was a frustrating situation - all I could do was scold her (which I did of course, in my fluent French) but I simply could not get her to feel bad for what she had done. Honestly, all she had to do was say (in English or French), "look, I'm sorry about last night, I promise it won't happen again." That would have sufficed but no, she refused to even say sorry. That frustrated me. Ironically, she never gave me any trouble again after that one night so at least something must have clicked in her head that I would not put up with her drunken behaviour any further.

In any case, I was angry about what happened and more to the point, I was frustrated that I could get what I want: for her to recognize that she had done something wrong and to apologize. That bothered me, a lot. So I told an English buddy in London about what happened and this was what he said to me, "you've got to let it go man, there's no point as you can't change the situation - it will just eat you up inside and you've got to forget it." Now whilst I know he meant well, I didn't quite agree with his approach as I have a better solution to the situation. I don't think I should just pretend that incident never happened, that is not the right way to deal with the problem. If I did that, I may suddenly remember what happened 2 weeks later, or 2 months later and still feel angry and frustrated because of the way it was left unresolved in my mind. Last night, I had a zen moment of clarity which told me exactly I had to do.

I was the last person to have left the gym last night, so as a ritual (given that I practically grew up in a gymnastics club), I went around the gym tidying up, putting away pieces of equipment so the gym was very neat and tidy. In going through that zen like ritual, I realized what I had to do: I had to come to an understanding as to what had happened and decide what my reaction should be. Now for those of you who don't know, I am a gymnast. I used to compete a lot when I was younger but I still train today and coach part time just to stay involved in the sport I truly love.

Despite the fact that I am older, I am not actually taking it any easier - I am always pushing myself in the gym to do difficult skills and constantly challenging myself to improve. It is not just a means of exercising to keep fit, it is a way of life, a way to block out the distractions of the world and just focus on one tiny little thing: like how I can time my first front layout so I can punch a powerful second somersault out of the rebound. When it goes wrong, I fall and I am frustrated; but when it all goes to plan and I hit the ground with a perfect landing after a very difficult skill, there is that smile in my face and that glee in my heart. I am so pleased that I have this sport to allow me where I can challenge myself and build my self-esteem. It is difficult but fun, I set myself challenges with new skills all the time and when I can do them, it brings me such pure joy.

As I thought about that young French woman who had to resort to getting horrifically drunk in the name of "having fun" and "just living my life" - I felt sorry for her. Is it not possible for her to feel good about herself, enjoy herself, have fun and live her life without resorting to being this intoxicated? You know, the drinking of alcohol is socially acceptable but having to get very drunk or binge drink just to "have fun" is quite another matter altogether. Look I know what it is like to get drunk: you are intoxicated, you lose your inhibitions and you do things that you wouldn't normally do when you are sober: I do wonder if she knew what she was doing as she allowed that guy to have his wicked way with her as she was so incredibly drunk at that point. (Can a very drunk woman give consent? Was he practically raping her? Should someone have done something to save a woman in that situation? That's another question for another day.)

Where do you draw the line between social drinking and being too drunk?

I have seen people turn to alcohol because they are stressed - when I worked in finance full time, I used to see people go directly from the office to the bar after work with the sole intention of getting as drunk as possible, why? So that the drunk intoxication can help them forget the nasty shit that had to face at work and all that horrible stress - it is means of escape which makes one wonder: if you are that stressed and unhappy, then perhaps you need to do something about the state of your life rather than have to turn to alcohol to forget your problems. Hence in this context, seeing that French woman next door get so drunk to the point where I doubted if she was in any state to give consent, well - I just felt sorry for her. She should have known better but good grief, if that was her idea of living her life and having fun... then I only have pity for her.

So at that moment, I realized that whilst I could never get her to feel sorry for the ruckus she caused that night, but at the same time, I found it in my heart to feel sorry for her. My response had turned from anger to pity: her inability to distinguish right from wrong, her lack of self-control implies far more deep seated problems with her mindset. It wasn't a problem that I could fix over an argument at 2 am in the morning (when she was horrifically drunk). Thus I should put my anger and frustration aside and choose to respond with sympathy instead - I couldn't solve her problems or correct the things that were wrong that night, but at least I could try to look a little bit deeper into her circumstances rather than focus on the fact that I couldn't sleep that night. Like so many of the unpleasant things that I have had to encounter in my life, no I can't change what had happened, but I can choose the way I want to respond to it.

How should I have responded?

So that is what I did. At that moment, as I was tidying up the gym, I had chosen to flick a switch and change my reaction from anger and frustration to sympathy and compassion. That allowed me to clear up the mess that was in my head, so the next time I revisited that night in Paris in my memory bank, the reaction I know I have associated with that memory was that of sympathy and compassion, not anger and frustration. I had cleared up the mess in my head, the same way I had cleared up the mess in the gym.

You see, what my buddy said about "letting it go" - I don't think it is as useful as "putting everything in place." Letting it go, walking away from it, pretending it never happened would be the same as leaving the gym in a mess - yes you've spared yourself the task of having to clean up the mess, but the next time you get back there, it would still be in a mess and you still have to deal with the same problems that you have not solved in the first place. So there you go, that's Limpeh's life lesson for the day. Always clear up the mess in your mind - that is even more important that clearing up the mess in your house. If you need someone to talk to, you know that Limpeh always here for you. I'd love to know what you think about this issue. Please leave me a comment below and many thanks for reading.

PS. I will write more on Paris soon. It's just that I have so much to catch up with since I returned to London.

Limpeh in Paris