In a lunging session a few weeks ago, one of my students was allowing her horse to crowd her space. I pointed out the issue but before she could get it resolved, the mare wheeled around and kicked her smack dab in the ribs. Turns out her coat absorbed pretty much the entire impact (shout out to Carhartt!), but it was a scary scene for a few minutes. Since her mom and sister were there, it was a frightening family experience, permeated by shock, fear, panic, doubt, worry... you name it. Later on that evening, it struck me that the one awful emotion none of them felt was anger toward the horse. I found that heartwarming, quite normal, and very interesting. If we can let animals off the hook that easily, why not each other?
Come on, I've seen horses bite, step on, and drag folks around without anyone getting offended. Yet people just have to look at each other the wrong way for feelings to get hurt... and drama, anger, disappointment, resentment, blah, blah, blah to ensue. When it ensues in barns, it sucks the fun right out of the places we go to primarily to have fun. Why do we do that to ourselves?
I was pondering that question when I happened upon a quote that read, "The greatest challenge in life is to find someone who knows all your flaws, differences, and mistakes, and yet still sees the best in you." Well, there's a clue. Surely that very mindset gets us looking for flaws and mistakes, which gets us thinking we need to fix them. For what purpose? To be better people? Who's to say we're not all perfectly fine just as we are at any given moment? At every given moment?
When I'm working with horses, I can tell they know this about themselves. They never look for my approval or disapproval. In fact, they make it pretty clear that my opinion of them means diddly squat to them. I never see horses trying to be better horses. I see us trying to get them to do things in a better way, yet those who have the most success carry the belief that the horse are perfectly fine as is every step along the way.
I can tell horses know we are, too. While horses constantly challenge us to get better at what we're doing, they never offer approval or disapproval of any of us personally no matter what we're doing. It wouldn't occur to them to do so because they are too in tune with who they are. They are too approving of themselves to be disapproving of us. No wonder it's so easy for us to let them off the hook. They do the same for us all the time, which is what makes being around them quite pleasant.
In the interest of living a joyful life, I'm following their lead on this one. I have to admit that, to me, the only thing that's worse than feeling offended by other humans is the feeling that I am offensive to others for some reason. And we humans come up with plenty of reasons... an infinite, exhausting, never-ending number of reasons.
There's no getting to the bottom of that bottomless pit, although there is humor in attempting it. On the same day I found that first quote, I saw another that read, "Don't be an asshole to me because then I'll have to be an asshole to you, and I'm better at being an asshole than you are." I'm not going to lie, it made me laugh.
Still, I can't help but wonder who dreams of growing up to become an asshole? Nobody, that's who...and yet we all somehow seem to meet our fair share. And then we sort of have to become assholes to stick up for ourselves, or we have to become the "bigger person." What does that even mean? That we're better than somebody else? Seems like thinking that would make us the biggest assholes of all...at least until somebody who's better at it comes along. This is the maniacal merry-go-round that keeps on spinning, leaving the people on board feeling underwhelmed with...well, the people on board.
You can't expect anybody on that ride to save you, but you can jump off to save yourself. I feel like horses pushed me off that carousel, and I couldn't be more grateful. The way they see themselves has me looking at myself and other humans as perfectly fine as is all the time. Knowing I have nothing to fix, it's so easy to let people off the hook... and so freeing I don't even care if anyone returns the favor.
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"Just got your book and I can't put it down! Packed with knowledge and instruction, can't wait to pass on the gold!"
-Katie Keller Trosclair
