Imagine there’s a nice, easy to walk road, going to some destination. There’s also some grass to one side – it feels even nicer, but when too many people walk on the grass, it gets destroyed. On the other sand – there is sharp gravel. You’re walking barefoot by the way. It’s nighttime, and there are no lights (you don’t have a smartphone either).
You have no idea the road exists like this. You have been walking, by sheer luck – either on the gravel, or on the grass, or if you are really lucky, on the road.
Depending on where you are walking, your experience is different. If you’ve been walking on the gravel, you’ve probably been telling yourself that even though the road is long and difficult, you must persevere.
If you’ve been walking on the grass, you’ve probably been enjoying yourself, with little heed to the grass below, and the effect you’ve been causing.
Lucky ones walking on the road have been enjoying the trip, while still being nice to the environment.
Sheer luck has landed you in one of these areas, and though you could easily change course to walk on one area or the other, you might not even realize this, considering it is dark, and you’ve always walked this way.
Now here’s where I tell you what you’ve known I’ve been doing all along – writing an analogy.
The road in the middle is being assertive (win-win or no deal). The gravel on the side is being passive (lose-win). The grass on the other side is being aggressive (win-lose).
The middle road is a pretty hard choice if you didn’t start off there. It’s easier to swing between being aggressive and blaming other people, taking what is theirs, etc. and being passive – giving in, passively agreeing to whatever other people say. You might be passive in one situation and aggressive in another too.
The middle road is worth it though. When you give some conscious thought to the other person, but retain the courage to speak up for yourself, and to say no to things that are not fair. It is a hard but necessary skill that will take you far in life, but also keep you happy within, as opposed to the hollower victory of taking what belongs to other people.
Assertiveness, to me, is linked with another concept – the abundance mentality (as opposed to a limited resources mentality). I’ve seen lots of people fight each other (playing the social/mental games humans like to play) for resources in unfair ways. What makes me sad is that I believe that if they worked together, and reigned in their jealousy over temporary losses (you win sometimes, you lose sometimes), they’d actually gain a lot more collectively.
This is a complex topic, and one that is shaped by your individual life experiences. It is pretty hard to put into words all of what I have in a non-rambling way, let alone try to cover the whole topic from different perspectives in this post. I’ll leave it at this – with a short statement: I hope more people are assertive and live their lives with an abundance mentality – this would make things better, not just for them, but for those around them, as well as collectively for humanity.
Prajjwal and his musings 