TREAD CAUTIOUSLY ON ‘LETTING GO’

For every one of us in both personal and professional terms, there are at times conflicting situations which confront us. Sometimes those situations reach a critical point because no one is prepared to compromise. It is in these sorts of environments that one-upmanship and brinkmanship arise. When no quarter is asked or given, the estate of him pass is reached and the fallout can be damaging. These sorts of scenarios often lead to people attacking each other quite mercilessly; those attacks upon personality may be verbal, in written form, and aggravated 100-fold through the use of popular media.

There can be a conundrum in all this. On the one hand “letting go“ might deflect conflict and LA concern – but on the other if principles are sacrificed and key issues ignored that creates problems of conscience. It can also smack of hypocrisy if key beliefs are surrendered for the sake of some populist outcome.

Throughout my working life and beyond I have found that “letting go“ works well if the focus is on the message and not on the message and not on the messenger.

Social media these days are bounds with hundreds of thousands of examples of people scarifying the personality of others through trolling and through a deliberate desire to hurt people through what they say.

(It is partly for this reason that I have never held social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and other accounts of this nature. Too many people are hurt sometimes to the point of suicide by what people write about them where the issues are ignored but the attackers on the person and the personality. I prefer professional sites.)

My take on letting go for the same of preserving relationships is to always concentrate on issues, and not to make messengers the target of critical response. Lofty ideals can be maintained if this is the focus.

Play the ball and not the person. That is a sure way of preserving respectful relationships.