Welcome the Tyrant by Michael Carroll from Awake at Work from Shambhala Publications.
People at work can be unusually irritating.
For many reasons,
We can find ourselves offended or angry with colleagues,
A coworker who publicly accepts praise for a job well done by others,
A condescending customer who never seemed satisfied,
A supplier who is full of polite excuses for never getting a delivery right,
Or worst of all,
An overbearing and unapologetic boss.
We can become peculiarly insulted by such behavior,
Losing our emotional balance,
Often in complete disproportion to the actual importance of the slight.
At times our colleagues can seem like tyrants having a unique power to unsettle us and keep us up at night.
Typically when we feel oppressed by tyrants,
We struggle and we try to reassure ourselves that we are not to blame,
That we do not deserve such insults and injustices.
We may complain to our spouses or partners about how we are treated.
The more we struggle,
The more the insult seems to expand.
The more we ponder the tyrant,
The more disturbing he becomes.
We may find ourselves plotting retaliation,
Waiting in ambush to offer cutting insights into our tyrants treacherous ways.
In the meantime,
We go about our business uneasy and on guard,
Keeping ourselves protected and unavailable.
Tyrants have a way of making us feel uncomfortable in our very own skins.
When we examine them closely,
We discover that tyrants are simply mirrors of our own insecurities and fears.
Our own doubts and worries distort challenging relationships into circumstances that can terrorize us.
In reality,
Tyrants are simply ordinary,
Messy work circumstances blown out of proportion by our lack of confidence.
Because we're worried about the possibility of losing our job,
An unruly boss gains unusual power over us,
Becoming a tyrant.
Because we're anxious about the possibility of being perceived as ineffective,
Our showboating colleague gains unusual power over us,
Becoming a tyrant.
Because we're troubled about the possibility that our job could get out of control,
Our condescending customer seems to have our future in her hands,
Becoming a tyrant.
Tyrants are stark invitations to look in the mirror and examine our futile search for security in an uncertain workplace.
Recognizing that we are,
In fact,
Authoring our tyrants,
That our hopes and fears are what fuel their power over us,
Is central to regaining our balance.
In the Buddhist tradition,
Coming upon such irritating and oppressive people is highly valued.
Any life circumstance that can expose our insecurities is considered a gift to be welcomed and explored.
One might well ask,
Why would I want to befriend such rude people?
Why would I welcome such a mess into my life?
But welcoming the tyrant need not be so distasteful.
Such a task,
At its core,
Can be quite simple and direct.
To welcome the tyrant,
We must be willing to let go of our inner defensiveness,
Even for a brief moment,
And experience our tyrants without bias or preconception.
Typically,
Tyrants make us tighten our grip on our viewpoints and justifications.
Tyrants control us by making us hold on and defend ourselves.
Here we do the opposite.
We let go instead of holding on.
By suddenly shifting our mindset,
We disarm our tyrants.
Our inner insecurities no longer empower our tormentors,
Giving us the chance to see our circumstances clearly.
A sales executive who was attending an Awake at Work seminar once said to me,
Welcoming the tyrant sounds great,
But I can't be honest with my boss.
He's so aggressive,
Yelling and interrogating at staff meetings.
No one dares confront him.
I'm sure he would fire me on the spot if I spoke my mind openly and honestly.
Such is our fear of tyrants.
If we were actually to confront them,
We would be inviting their sloppy wrath,
The last thing we want.
But such confrontation is not really necessary.
Welcoming the tyrant does not require that we suddenly release all our pent-up frustrations toward our boss in the middle of a staff meeting.
It begins as a simple inner gesture.
My suggestion was only this.
At the next meeting,
Just for a moment,
Let go of all your fixed ideas about your boss,
And just be there in the room.
Be curious and notice what's going on.
Welcome the situation.
A few weeks passed,
And this executive spoke to me again after class.
Well,
I took your advice,
She said.
For just a brief moment,
I dropped my resentment toward my boss at the staff meeting and just observed.
Sure enough,
For that moment,
I wasn't preoccupied with his being such an idiot,
And I could see what was really going on.
What did you see?
I asked.
Well,
First off,
He was in a hurry.
He seemed to need to be somewhere else.
He wasn't listening,
And he seemed very distracted.
He seemed so unhappy being in the meeting.
Or at least that's how it looked.
What about the other people in your room?
Your sales managers?
What did you notice there?
Well,
I hadn't really noticed this before,
But they were just going through a routine.
Everything seemed so staged and insincere.
Oh,
And I also noticed that they were holding back a lot of good news.
One of my guys deliberately avoided telling all of us about a major sale he had just closed.
It dawned on me that even telling good news had become too much of a risk.
And my best sales manager looked bored out of her mind.
For a moment,
I thought that maybe she was thinking of getting a job somewhere else.
So,
What did you learn?
I asked.
Well,
My boss still makes me uptight,
That's for sure.
But I can drop it and,
At least for a moment,
See the situation without my anxiety.
I had been missing a lot.
My managers are holding back,
The good news is not being told,
And my best sales manager is bored by the whole mess.
This sales executive had learned that welcoming the tyrant was an exercise in simply being curious about what oppressed her.
Much to her surprise,
Her tyrant had become disarmed,
Just for a moment.
The blinding effects of her own anxieties had diminished,
And she could get a clearer picture of what was really going on,
With herself,
Her boss,
And her sales team.
By welcoming the tyrant in this way over and over again,
We gradually become relaxed with dropping our insecurities about those who irritate us.
We discover that much of what bothers us is of our own making.
The colleague who doesn't say good morning is not insulting us.
We look closer and find that his personal life has unraveled and he's soon to be divorced.
He comes in sad and withdrawn,
Not rude and insulting.
The new employee who interrupted meetings is not disrespectful.
We look closer and find that she's just nervous and awkwardly trying to fit in.
We begin to see that many of the workplace's perceived slights are not slights at all.
Welcoming the tyrant sharpens our intelligence and confidence,
Making us more effective and versatile.
Over time,
Our anxiety toward tyrants dissolves,
Transforming into an astute curiosity.
Why is our colleague embarrassing herself publicly by taking credit where none is due?
What in our boss's life makes him so angry and aloof and arrogant toward his subordinates?
By welcoming the tyrant,
We learn to examine oppressive circumstances very closely,
Not push them away,
To welcome the tyrant,
Not destroy him.
By doing so,
We find a courage that frees us to be remarkably skillful in managing irritating work circumstances.
