Giving up the Struggle

Now, first it’s important to know that giving up the struggle and giving up on the struggle are two different things. To give up the struggle means to stop wrestling with adversity—to deal with adversity in a more creative manner. To give up on the struggle would mean to give up our goals, and that would be the last thing anyone would want to do. Our goals, our aspirations, our intentions—those keep us moving forward in life. They give us a focus and a purpose, and they are driven from our soul.

But struggle can become a lifestyle in itself, and this is what we want to put aside. Remember the movie War of the Roses? A couple was not happy together, but they would not give up fighting, and they kept engaging each other in battle until their demise. Some years back I met the wife in a similar couple; they had decided to get divorced ten years before. They had the money to do it, and they were spending it all on litigation. This poor woman’s entire focus on her life was winning—or not letting her husband win. She was bitter and angry, and the lines in her face showed the stress of her chosen manner to engage with her husband. But what was so sad was that she couldn’t even remember any longer what the issues were. The struggle had become her lifestyle.

There are many ways that we allow ourselves to be ravaged by ongoing conflict in our lives. It may be with another person, or it may be with “the system.” We may battle cancer or we may feel that we have to fight to raise our children well. For centuries countries have engaged in long wars over whose religion knows God the best, or who has the right to what land. No matter which side you speak with, they are the freedom fighter, and the other guy is the oppressor. But the battles go on, and they become our lives.

We all do this in at least small ways, but sometimes we get caught in larger patterns that perpetually cause stress and anxiety. What’s important to keep in awareness is that it’s pattern and therefore it can be broken. I think of a common interaction between my own parents: My father would ask my mother to keep all receipts when she shopped, and she would always “forget.” Arguments about this went on for fifty years. Another typical pattern for them was that my mother was almost never ready to go out on time, and this, too, was the basis of constant uproar for years. But in this situation, one person—in this case my father—decided to give up the struggle. In his new pattern, he would go sit in the car a little early, read the newspaper and wait there for my mother until she came out. Seeing that he had already left, and that he was no longer going to take responsibility for her timing issues, my mother would hurry and join him. Finally recognizing that there would be nothing to ever make his wife be on time, my father simply changed the pattern so that it no longer created stress. A simple and elegant solution.

Now in situations like this, one might be inclined to think that he is right and she is wrong. After all, who wants to be kept waiting. But, on the other hand, my mother often felt that my father was overbearing and dominating. So to her, these were small ways she could assert herself. When we face such conflict, externally, the arguments often center around being right or wrong, or who will have the power. But on another level, there is the willingness on the part of both parties to keep the fight going—to live in conflict.

Creating peace is a matter of making the decision to do so. It is an illusion to think that everyone is going to agree. But the intent to create peace is the intent to give up the struggle, not the goals. This means that the goals should remain the focus rather than their obstacles. Sometimes, if we’re afraid to actually fully undertake our goals, we may unknowingly prefer whirling around in dissonance with another to facing the task before us. It is a very common human trait to think that others keep us from our goals. But staying focused on the goal will always take us there.

For example, suppose we are facing cancer or some other life-threatening illness. If we conceive of this as a battle, we live in stress, the very thing that can exacerbate our health challenges. If we keep an eye to our healing, we draw to us the nurturing and healing that will best help us. Or, if we are dealing with conflict at work, do we gather up a crew of like minded people to share in our complaining? Or do we share instead our goals, and become innovators in a win-win model for the betterment of all. If we have family conflicts, do we position ourselves in what we think is right and assume the other is wrong, or do we stop seeing it as fighting and join together to search for solutions that work for everyone?

Keeping the goals at the forefront of our consciousness allows us, to a great extent, to bypass the conflict. If we think of the great peacemakers—such as Martin Luther King, or St. Francis, or Ghandi—they kept the goal, not the conflict, at the forefront of their consciousness. They made inroads into difficult situations because they held a vision of union, and worked towards that goal, inspiring others to do so as well, rather than engaging with the inevitable opposition.

Differences are always there. Challenges are a part of life. But will we make as focus of what isn’t the way we want it and who doesn’t agree with us–or will we put our energy toward reaching our goals? It’s only a matter of perspective, and it’s a choice.