I miss my younger years, and I’m only twenty-six! Life was much easier as a child. No student loan repayments, no phone bills, no car payments, no insurance for the car payments, no having to dodge solicitors and/or canvassers pushing their products on me or asking me for money. I mean I don’t have it like that. I’m not Oprah or Warren Buffet. Like, can you help me?
But seriously, I vaguely remember the term social contract from my high school government classes. I wanted to be sure my understanding, some eleven years later, was still correct. Therefore, I took it upon myself to double check with a credible source, Encyclopedia Brittanica. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, within the context of political philosophy, a social contract is defined as: “an actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each.” My definition was pretty similar, sans the stereotypical British pretension of course–I’m American so naturally I use a more relaxed register in general. But, I digress.
Why do I bring up the political philosophy of social contract? Well, I’ve been getting irritated a lot more these days. The source of my irritation–people. Bear with me here as I elaborate. I think– and I’m sure this cannot be an original idea, and I didn’t thoroughly research before writing this, but here I go– that social contracts are at work with all human interactions, and they do not necessitate a written agreement. As a society there are implied rules for behavior otherwise known as common decency. When people break these implied rules, in other words lack etiquette, as a person on the receiving end of gauche behavior is there a wrong way to react? Is there a thin line between rude and real?
Let me give an example. While practicing my yoga in the living room, a relative said: “I need to continue watching this show. Can you move?” Now, you may believe this was harmless, but context is everything. The relative had left the living room to start cooking in the kitchen, and was speaking to another relative over the phone. Usually she, the relative who wanted me to leave the living room mid-practice, speaks on the phone for at minimum 40 minutes. I started an at-home video program that was 26 minutes long. Since, the relative in question’s conversation ended earlier than the 40 minutes she expected me to just move. Mind you, I was in the half moon pose rotating my ankle. This was at about 20 minutes into the practice, and I try to tune out what’s going on that doesn’t serve me. However, I yielded to the relative and after coming out of the pose did a 30 second child’s pose to close out the practice and go–write this post!
How do I think the relative should have handled the situation? She knows I usually practice yoga for 20-30 minutes three days a week in the living. She could have asked me how much longer I thought I’d be instead of asking me to leave so she could watch television. Moreover, she was watching an episode of a show on Netflix that she had already watched! I practice yoga to calm myself. Brett Kavanaugh had just gotten the senate votes he needed to get confirmed as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and I was upset by it. I took a walk. Came back home. Read a little bit. Waited for an opportunity to do yoga to close out and come to terms, and then BOOM. No yoga for me.
Maybe you think I’m being ridiculous, but that’s how I process and move through the world. I sneak in the moments I can to build a better me, and make as few waves as possible at home and elsewhere by keeping a low profile, and so yes, I felt a lot more than inconvenienced when that incident happened. Why did I ask the question: is there a thin line between rude and real? I ask because yielding is not what I wanted to do. Yielding is what the social contract to which I prescribe, and which is deeply ingrained within me, required me to do it. What I wanted to do was get REAL. I wanted to say: really, you can’t wait for me to finish this video on my laptop in six minutes before you go back to watching an episode you know you’ve already watched before?
Beyoncé sang: “What’s worst? Lookin’ jealous or crazy? Jealous or crazy? Or like being walked all over lately, walked over lately. I’d rather be crazy.” And to be quite frank, I have to agree. I looked jealous, rolling up my pink yoga mat from Five Below, because someone got to benefit from my adhering to the social contract when they had broken it. But honestly, I would’ve rather looked crazy coming for this relative’s whole life! I feel like I would have felt good about it.
And yet, had I acted crazy the situation would have escalated. But, sometimes I’m just tired of being nice. I want to be more like Rihanna. Do whatever I want, the rest of the world and their social contract be damned! Sometimes people need to hear the real; it may come off as rude, but as the saying goes once bitten, twice shy. I need to reflect on why I yield so much, and so easily. Maybe I’m just upset with myself. How do I plan on self improving? I’m on the library’s waitlist for Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life. I’m number 445 in the cue. It’s going to be a minute. FML. Pray for me.
Oh yeah, and by the way, not EVEN halfway through me writing this blogpost she’s back on the phone.
-_-
#StillMad #DrakeLevelUpset