Tilting at Windmills
Tilting at windmills is exhausting.
I should know. For the last few years I’ve been waving my sword at giants, huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf, certain in the rightness of my cause. There is no drug or drink as heady as righteous indignation, for when you are certain that you are right, that you are the only person who can see the truth through the fog that surrounds everyone else, anger pours out like honey, a thick amber goo that seeps into the cracks of everything it touches and sticks and sticks and sticks.
It’s comforting to wallow in how the world should be, to bemoan the state of things, to think that if people would just shut-up and do it my way, they’d see the light. Honestly, the world would be a much better place if everyone just did what I thought they should.
When it’s put like that, it’s much easier to see the pride and arrogance for what it is. In my case, I think I had to run out of steam before I could finally stop and stand there, panting and wiping the sweat off my brow, suddenly realizing that those giants were really windmills. Not only was it impossible to defeat them, defeating them was really not the point.
Huh.
I’m not going to go into long explanations about my particular windmills—at least not here in a blog post. I will say that a leaky jar of honey can spill over from one area to another until everything is a sticky mess. I worked up a full-head of steam of righteous indignation that finally got me so mired in despair that no progress in any direction was possible—the very opposite of what I was so desperately pushing for.
A hard truth about life is that there are some things we cannot change. Rather than weeping and wailing, gnashing our teeth at the injustices, and demanding that the world accommodate us, I think we need to step back. You can’t stop the ocean waves, but you can figure out how to avoid rolling up the beach spitting sand.
Again.
There’s a freedom that comes from ending the pursuit of control over the uncontrollable. It allows you to take the reins over what is in your power even if it’s only your own reactions.
When you stop fighting the waves or tilting at windmills, you give yourself the power and permission to surf.
Didn’t think of that didja, Don Quixote?