It's Nothing Personal

It’s like a bit from a standup comic:

*Editor’s Note: None of this happened to me, ever. This is my impression of a standup comic. The views and attitudes expressed are not my own, and the events depicted are fictional.

So many standup comics put things like this in their sets and in their subsequent sitcoms because we either a) have experienced it firsthand or b) have no trouble imagining it happening. But according to the premise of The Four Agreements, we all should find it hilarious because we’re all dreaming all the time.

It’s a really interesting way of viewing the disparate perspectives we all have. There is no unified, codified record of all our points of view. No one sees anything perfectly, we all see what we see personally, so we all act and react according to what we experience and process through the smoky haze of human perception. What we think, how we act, and how we interpret everyone else’s roles in our dreams is based on who we are, what we’ve been through, and what we’re currently going through.

Which is why one of the Four Agreements—the four principles the book recommends you adopt as essentially good ideas for living—is Take nothing personally.

The obvious part of this principle lies in the realm of negativity that comes our way on a daily basis. If someone insults you, don’t take it personally. The insult is their reaction within a dream about the image you represent within that dream. It has nothing to do with you. More than that (and this is important to avoid just manipulating this “agreement” as a way to gaslight everyone you meet) the insult has been filtered through your own dream and interpretation. (Editor’s warning: It’s about to feel like Christopher Nolan is directing this paragraph.) Without being aware of the dream state we’re all in, it seems to you like someone has entered this world you sit at the center of and dared insult you. The nerve. But in reality, you had a dream in which you witnessed another dreaming person insult you because of the dream they were having and what their dreamed up version of you did during their dream.

Take a second to let that convoluted sentence unwind in or out of your head. The bottom line is, people’s words and actions and eyerolls come from their identities and experiences. What you see from them is a reflection of them, not you.

The hidden and perhaps even more important aspect of this idea is the positive side of things. Don’t take the compliments and flirtations and praise (and LIKES—I’m looking at you, little red notification circles all over our phones) personally. Someone is having a dream in which you are making them smile. Don’t take that personally either.

Why not? Why not eat up that sweet compliment about what a nice person you are? Why not bask in the glow and the glory of being told your smile is amazing or it’s the best apple strudel they’ve ever tasted or the incontrovertible fact that you’re HILARIOUS?

Because (and, at long last, this is where we get to the part of Christianity I’m deconstructing here) you love yourself unconditionally. You don’t depend on the 19 likes your Facebook comment got to feel good about yourself. You aren’t basing your security on what other people seem to think of you.

Not taking things personally doesn’t mean you don’t care what other people think and feel. You can be happy you made your sister happy, and you can be sad that stranger is sad . . . that’s humanity. That’s empathy. Of course you should allow other people’s emotions to affect yours. But you know taking things personally is more than that. You know that the Christian lens scientifically grafted into your eyeballs has made everything seem like a judgment on you. Everything anyone says or does toward you feels like an evaluation, and, in life, anything short of an impeccable evaluation leads to eternal damnation and separation from everyone you’ve ever cared about.

But you can love yourself unconditionally and still care about other people. All you need to do is recognize that huge, hazy distance between someone else’s experience and your soul. You are not the center of anyone else’s dream, and taking things personally (as strange as it may sound) is the height of arrogance. Other people’s actions are a reflection of them, not you. If everything that happened around you was a reflection of you, you would be some sort of god.

You’re not a god. You’re a dreamer. (And you’re not the only one.)

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