Category: Josh Feingold Blog

Recently a friend called me out on how I made them feel about something, and of course I made myself say, “I’m sorry.”  However, I didn’t really feel sorry, and in wondering why, stumbled upon this amazing realization.

I’ll give you an example to make this clear.  The example isn’t perfect, but hopefully you’ll get the idea.

You are in line for ice cream, and someone comes in behind you with a screaming kid.  The guy behind the counter is taking his time, and the kid is just screaming more and more.  Now in this situation, you have a choice, you could let them go before you, and fix the screaming kid problem, or you could keep your turn in line.  If you want, we can even give make you very hungry, and really not in any mood to wait.

So you decide to keep your place in line, and once both you and the lady with the kid are well fed, she passes by you, and blows up at you, complaining “how could you have been so inconsiderate” of me, now my day is ruined, since I had to fight with my kid.  Aren’t you going to apologize for making me angry?

Herein, is the problem.   She made herself angry.  You didn’t do it.  In fact, she could have just picked up her kid and left… no one forced her to get ice cream.

Let’s pretend that you wanted to act sincerely, since all of your actions you try to do out of sincerity.  Can you really feel sorry hurting the woman?  After all, you didn’t make her mad.  Sure you could have alleviated things a little, but was it really your fault?

No, not really.

However, how is it reasonable that she expect you to apologize?

It comes down to perspective.  If you take the perspective of the one who was hurt, and put yourself in their shoes, you can in fact be sorry for making them mad.  The problem, is that as an individual, you don’t belong in their perspective, rather your own perspective, and from that vantage point there is nothing to apologize for.

So how can someone sincerely apologize?  Only by going beyond yourself, and sitting with them in their pain.  Since if their pain is your pain, which is often appropriate in friendship, you can actually feel it yourself – and in doing so, you can find the power to apologize sincerely.

This reality also explains why sometimes when someone apologizes it doesn’t seem sincere.  Because, while they can say the words, they aren’t connected to you enough to mean it.  It’s interesting that the astute person can pick that up in the emotions of the person who is apologizing.  Are they simply assuage their own guilt, just paying lip service, or are they really there with you in the pain.

And with that, I thank my friend who has taught me this important lesson, and can now say I am truly sorry, since as they noted in conversation, I wasn’t with them in their pain, like a good friend should have been.

 

 

I received the following thought from someone I was exchanging emails with the other day, and thought it brought out an important point to how I have been living that I wanted to share.

“If I have to be honest with you though, I do not think I am the type of girl who can just ‘snuggle watching tv’ while waiting for ‘THE ONE.’ Between you and me, I wish I could; I think my life would be a lot happier.”

After I got divorced, I realized that there were two approaches in front of me.  I could jump back into another relationship to try and sooth the pain, or I could take some time, live with pain, and evaluate things.

As readers of my blog might guess, I was naturally inclined to choose the latter.  And I did.  And boy and I glad that I did.

Through my evaluation, I was able to ascertain that I have needs.  I think I mention most of them a few weeks ago.  There is a tendency to say that these needs must be filled by one person.  However, what I have learned is that it is equally possible to have these needs filled by multiple people.

Of course, this method isn’t ideal, but it does allow for someone to get control of their life, and not need to settle in their next committed relationship.

The the basic idea is you find different friends to meet different needs, and then patiently wait for the right person to come along who has all that you want and desire in a mate.  If you think about it, this is not just an approach for divorcees, rather, a good approach for anyone who is single and looking to get married.

A friend sent me an email this morning and said that:

“Being hurt is, at best uncomfortable, but almost always painful – but is a necessary part of life.”

I think that this is a good example of a truth that so many hold is true, that the individual that comes into this world doesn’t realize that in fact it might not be.  In fact, when I pointed this out to her, and she had a moment to reflect on things, she agreed.

Put another way, there are many truths that we accept as self-evident, that we haven’t examined closely enough to realize that in-fact they are fallacies.

The problem with these “truths” is that we live our life with them, and they entrap us in their message, ultimately having a negative impact on us.

In reality, such “truths” are all around us, and we work with them every day, not realizing that we are blindly accepting them, and that they are preventing the maturation of society – or at least the individual.

In this particular case, I would argue that being hurt is not a  necessary part of life.  Rather, that it is possible by being a fully educated person to go through life pretty much without pain.  Of course, this level of education is hard to achieve, but that doesn’t mean that it is impossible, nor that pain is necessary.

Of course, this is only one of many such false truths that we assume.  I’ll share other ones that I find along the way.

I started a new journal today.   My fifth (sixth?) for the past year.  With each journal, which is the manly word for diary, I end with a summary of those issues that are plaguing me, and set a goal of working through them in the next journal.

I’ll share my current goals:

1) Being comfortable with people disliking me.

2) Being comfortable not in a relationship.

3) Not feeling rejected by relationship that I didn’t end.

4) Not allowing myself to settle in my next committed relationship (not to say that I did or did not in the past, but looking forward, this is very important!)

My guess is that over the course of the next few months many posts will center on these ideas, as I work through them, and put them to bed, and work through tangential issues.

With that introduction, I wanted to talk a little to rejection.  First I would like to point out this post that I found, that really says all that anyone could want to know about rejection.  In truth, it’s a great blog about relationships in general.  While written from the perspective of women, it does allow men to look at their side of the dance and see if there are red flags that they need to think about.

Having said that, I wanted to share my current thinking on rejection, and the point out the true irony of rejection, which she doesn’t mention.

First I should point out that as always, there is a difference between BEING rejected and FEELING rejected.  The difference being that while BEING rejected is in another’s control, FEELING rejected is totally in our own control.

So let’s focus on FEELING rejected.

How can we not feel rejected?  Well, it’s simple don’t feel that way.

Yeah, but I do feel that way, so what now?

Here is where the irony comes in.

In order not to feel that you are being rejected, you must first get rid of your ego.  Dude, you’re not all that great.  You can’t be everything for everyone.  Some people have needs that you can’t fulfill.  Some people are just weird.  You’re not God.   Get over it.  Their leaving is not about you at all. It’s totally about them.

However, to not feel rejected, to not take it personally, you must have a strong ego, or more specifically sense of self.  I’m great.  Their rejection is not a reflection of me.  There’s nothing wrong with me.

And this is why rejection is such a hard topic.  Because, it requires both the total acknowledgement that you are your world in its entirety, and you are not the whole world, at the same time.

With this message, I think I am cool with being rejection. Two down (people not liking me and rejection), two to go. I guess we’ll see.

I was working on one of my ongoing issues, the need to be approved of, and as I looked for a book to help me get rid of this bad habit, realized that in truth, there was no more work to be done.  I had thought about the topic to a base level, and truly understand why I have such a need, and the negative impact it has on my life.

What I needed was to remember what I knew, when the occasion called for it.  That’s where a good Mantra comes in.  So I created one.

“Be Comfortable Allowing People To Dislike You.”

I posted this at work and at home, and over the next few months, it will become ingrained in myself, at a deep level, finally allowing me the freedom to be myself at a much deeper level, in a number of my relationships.

I look forward to that day.