I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution this year. I usually don’t make them and can’t remember the last time I was serious about one. Now, though, I feel compelled to do it. The reason? I have become aware lately of the need not to be a little bitch.
This might be because I have spent so much time acting like one. I’m much better now than I used to be, age having its advantages, but there’s always room for improvement, especially since bitchiness has become a default position, I’m afraid. That may come as a surprise to the woman who told me once that she admired me for being “cool, calm, and unflustered,” but that doesn’t mean I’m not beyond a bitchy remark or comeback.
Such remarks or comebacks can land you in a heap of trouble. I learned that the hard way over the years. Better to keep quiet and remove yourself from the situation or, if cornered, stand your ground and act as respectfully as possible toward those involved (i.e., not a wiseass). In the end, if you have to take lumps, figuratively or otherwise, so be it. Get it over with as soon as possible and move on. No sense feeling sorry for yourself. Most people find shiners attractive, anyway.
The hardest part of all this is the reality that words do, in fact, hurt. Once uttered, the damage they inflict can be lessened but not undone. When said repeatedly, hurtful words can form a habit and earn you a reputation that puts everybody off. Reputation as what? A little bitch, of course. The irony is that nobody wants to be one and yet there are so many of us out there. The remedy is discipline. “For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile” (1 Peter 3:10).
Bitchiness is a form of guile in that it does not reflect the true person but rather that part of the anima that lashes out at others often without provocation. I think this can be unlearned. The best way is to see what it looks like on other people. That is, what does acting like a little bitch look like when other people do it? I could turn to popular social media figures like Joe Rogan or David Goggins here, both of whom have taken up the topic in their podcasts, but if you watch their videos, you’ll see that they focus almost exclusively on personal experience, which gets them clicks and likes galore, but I believe there is a better example.
To my way of thinking, someone acting like a bitch extraordinaire is described in the biblical “Parable of the Wicked Servant” from Matthew’s Gospel (18:21-35). In it, a servant who owes his master a huge sum begs for leniency, since his wife, children, and property were going to be sold to repay the debt. “Moved with compassion, the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan” (18:27).
But when a fellow servant asked the same servant for leniency concerning a much smaller debt he owed him, the servant “…seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe’” (18:28). The man pleaded with him to be patient, but the servant refused and instead had him put in prison.
As you might expect, things did not turn out well for the servant when the master found out. He handed him over to the “torturers” in prison until he paid back all of the original debt. Matthew ends the parable by warning, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart” (18:35).
Bitchiness is more than guile. It reflects stinginess and a lack of grace that leads to a nihilistic lifestyle and, eventually, unhappiness. If you live long enough and have a modicum of sensitivity–thankfully, I exceed the one and barely meet the other–you realize that you can’t be old and bitchy at the same time. It’s undignified and even scandalous. That is, you’re supposed to act a certain way after a certain age.
If you can accept that without bitching about societal constraints, then losing “all ambition for worldly acclaim” as the song goes makes perfect sense (see below). You learn to appreciate what God intended you to be without the drama that comes with trying to control reality and shaping it toward your ends. Anyway, that’s the plan and that’s my resolution: to tame the inner bitch. We’ll see what happens.
Image credits: Blake Cheek. Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. The Brancatelli Blog is a member of The Free Media Alliance, which promotes “alternatives to software, culture, and hardware monopolies.”
