I wasn't going to post today, but my brain just couldn't leave me alone, so I went again into my process of creating a post for POB and after looking at the flowchart (that now I'm really happy that people liked and it made sense) I decided it was worth to post it. It's an old story that maybe you all know, but from time to time I like to remember it. And of course I'll try to tell them in my own words, so no one can say that it was plagiarism (yes, I'm looking at some of you here, but now we have some tools to call you out!)
A long, long time ago, in China, there was a great samurai that lived up in a mountain. He was undefeatable for many years, and at a point in his life he decided to stop fighting and would only teach. So he got himself a good spot, open a dojo and started to receive students.
Everybody said it was a really hard training, and it was true: just to get to the dojo you had to climb this freaking mountain, and you were not allowed to live there, so it would be a daily climb, besides all the exercises and training, but many students really looked up to the samurai, so they became disciples.
Some years passed but the fame of the undefeatable samurai was still in the mind of some, but now they twisted the story and he wasn't that undefeatable anymore. This words fell into the ears of another aspiring samurai, that decided to challenge the recluse samurai to make a name for himself.
So the aspiring samurai went on a long journey to find the mountain (remeber, ancient china, no gps) and after a while he found it. But there was also the climb to get to the dojo, and because it was his first time there, it was also really hard to get to the top.
This man was pissed. Oh boy, he so pissed that he even lost the gate to the dojo a few times. Whem he finally got there, the old samurai was in the middle of a class with his disciples, but the angry man didn't care about that. He came in shouting and screaming, pouring out all his rage towards him. Called him a bastard, a weakling, that he was in a forsaken place to hide because he was a chicken!
The moment he said that all the disciples stood up, but the wise samurai just raised one hand and they all stopped. The man took out his sword and continued shouting, but there was no response from the other. After a good time of shouting, and no fighting, the aspiring samurai decided to leave and cursed the old samurai a few more times. After he left, all the disciples questioned the master:
- "Oh my fucking Buda!!! How can you be so calm when that piece of shit called you so many names??? Is it true, are you a chicken? A coward? Are we following a deep shit all this time???"
The master looked deeply into the disciples eyes, a look of pure warm and wisdom:
"Listen up bitches, let me tell you something. If someone comes to you with a gift, and you do not accept it, to whom does the gift belong?"
"To the person who brought it." Said one of the disciples.
"The same is true to hatred, insults and envy. If you don't accept them, they continue to belong to the mofo that had them in the first place. And what is best, he has to carry that weight all the way down the hill... hahahaha"
And they lived happily ever after.
Well, I think you can get the ideia here. An insult is only strong if you accept it. And most of times when people demonstrate hate, it's something on them, not on you, so don't accept that either. The more you don't take things personally, the less you'll be stressed.
Always remember we are in a social network. People will disagree with you, people will try to fight you and call you names, people may even try to scare you. But if you don't take that personally and don't accept it as your own, I bet you will be in a much better place then the person who is attacking you.
And that's all for today my lovely padawans! Thanks for reading until here!
Keep posting and keep shining!
