I’m not a pushover!
If you’ve ever said these words there is most likely an explanation as to why… Would you agree?
It’s almost like having to say that a certain group of people’s “lives matter.” If you have to say it, it points to the probability that the opposite is or has been accepted at one point. Why does it even have to be said?
If we have to shout “I’m not a pushover!” from the mountain tops, declare it in a loud voice or maybe are just convinced for some reason to “make noise” about it, then perhaps we need to, first, find out what all the fuss is about for ourselves. And second, find out if this fuss is ours to contend with for others.
Let’s start with the second part: What does that mean… to find out if it is our fuss to contend with for others?
Is the issue at hand, this issue of being a pushover, ours to not only own but to take responsibility for and promote for others too?
Picture this. Ten strong men walking straight up to one small boy, and just one of them ‘pushing’ him over. When he stands up and shouts: “Stop, I’m not a pushover!,” and when some people that overhear it decide to support him. When everyone starts jumping on the bandwagon for the “cause of the pushover.” (#imnotapushover). When they start making, “I’m not a pushover” bumper stickers and signs and placing them in their yards.
When they start getting other small boys involved to share accounts of when they’ve been pushed over to forward the “cause”…. you get the point… When all of this happens. Is that little boy responsible for being a voice, a martyr if you will, for the cause. Did he even want to be?
When the media starts calling him to share his story, or finding every single relate-able circumstance to highlight, is he now obligated to relive this incident again and again?
And what about the ten men? If there was even one doubt of intention concerning the incident (perhaps it was accidental) is the little boy responsible for them too?
Now that we’ve unpacked the second part a bit, let’s go back to the first: what is all the fuss about for ourselves?
Why are we screaming “I’m not a pushover” in the first place?
Picture again the little boy. Is yelling this phrase out the solution or the answer to him not being or feeling like a pushover? In one way perhaps. But what is being called attention to here? Is it simply the idea of being a pushover, or maybe something greater.
What’s all the fuss about for the little boy, the person? Not the movement, not the cause… just the individual.
We all have facets that are part of our personage that cause us to act, react, respond differently to moments when we feel like we’re being mistreated. Sometimes those differences can stand out in the matter of an hour, sometimes they’re uncovered over the course of years. But it all starts with us, as individuals.
Do we have what it takes to meet this individual, before the cause, before the movement. To really try and understand the person from this most intimate place first?
Have you ever been in a place where you just wanted to be seen as an individual. A person, way before the cause…. No matter how long it took?
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