My dad always says “Never get into unnecessary trouble”.
During college, when I used to get hungry in the night, there’d be no food stalls or cantenes available inside the campus so I had to go out to get something to eat. Because it was night time, there would be excited dogs going around on the roads. And almost always, when they see you with some food/plastic-bag, they tend to tease around, bark/growl and sometimes even smell you, intimidatingly. In a situation like this, if you become animated in any way and try to shout back or show force/aggression, you *will* face the wrath of the pack. They will bark louder, get fiercer and team up to make you their enemy.
If you ever find yourself in this sort of situation, I implore you to just stay calm AF. It’s not easy because any sane person with emotions would freak out and be either afraid/angry. But that’s the trick, fellas. You have to stay calm and un-animated and basically, be boring to the dogs. Just walk away without any sort of response — like they didn’t even exist. Showing any sort of response would be like throwing a rock at them.
In terms of behavioral patterns, I feel that you can draw parallels between these sort of dogs and some humans & communities. “The Bullies” is a common term used to represent folk that fall under this category. They lurk around looking for weak targets to pass their valuable time with. They draw energy by displaying dominance and acquiring power from the bullied. In essence, the bullies don’t have enough self-respect to support their bloated ego so they look for the weak to provide them with a feeling of control and power. To beat the bullies, you just have to break that pathway of power from you to them. This is the abstract solution to the bullies problem. Just find out what he’s getting off of and cut the source. Most of the times, the fact that you are feeling a certain way, like down or hurt or humiliated or sad or guilty, is what pumps fire into the bully’s belly. So all you have to do is recognize that and reframe your personality to stop feeling those negative feelings. He can’t hold power over you if you just don’t give a damn. Self-control — having control over your own thoughts, emotions and how you feel — plays a major role in this approach.
I AM PRETTY SURE there will be bullies/barking-dogs along the way in your journey if you want to do something of significance. Your job is to decide which is of higher priority to you. The bigger goal or the smaller fight. They will bark at you, try to get under your skin, even harass you mildly. They will try desperately to pick fights with you and slow you down and waste your time & resources. So should you stop and fight or just ignore and keep going?
I recently read “The Art of the Start” and I remember Guy(author) giving an advice that may fit the bill here — Don’t sweat the small stuff. If you’re an entrepreneur, the small stuff is like getting the office furniture, printing cards/tshirts etc. The big stuff(higher priority) is something like building your product/service, communication with clients, scaling up your business, marketing etc.
But obviously, there’s another side to this piece of advice. Just like it’s foolish to ignore all barking dogs, it would indeed be foolish to ignore all bullies. Sometimes, you have to move to a position of undeniable power to keep the bullies at bay. If the bullying is physical, you gotta hit the gym hard and become stronger and faster. If it is psychological, you gotta grow your awareness and knowledge so you can evade the subtle guilt-traps and the mental chains the bully may try to bind you down with. If the bully sees any sign of weakness or any chance of dominance over you, he will take it. Your job is to make sure he knows that if he takes that chance, you’ll whoop his ass.
Here’s another problem. In the modern society, the prevailing law and order doesn’t allow you to permanently put your bully down. The bully has, in the eyes of the law, equal rights and responsibilities as you. The only thing worse than a bully is a bully that’s protected. And if you seriously enrage a protected bully, you better start digging a grave because he’ll come for your bones. One of you will definitely go in the grave.
You could also go down into the mud yourself and try to book the bully legally with lawsuits, allegations and that sort of stuff but that’d most likely consume too much of your time, energy and money. It’s obviously a huge investment on your part with absolutely zero return. So it seems that the better option is to not pick a fight with the bully at all. Stay under the RADAR. And if the bully picks a fight with you, play it smart and just ignore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5nPOzznDb8
Hope you found something of value in this article. If you did, click ❤ to let me know and if you didn’t please leave a comment about it.
Peace,
Lusid
