I’ve just been dealing with some disturbing news: one of the translation agencies I work for has given me some negative feedback about my work and announced a scaling-back, for the time being at least, of the type and amount of work I can do for them. The e-mail came on a Friday afternoon, which rather put a damper on my weekend!
This isn’t very nice, as anyone who has been criticised will know! But, as I’ve been reflecting on its implications, I’ve come to realise that, oddly enough, my discomfort isn’t so much about the possible loss of livelihood. No, what bothers me much more is the challenge this represents to my idea of who I am – to my self, you might say.
Buddhism tells us that all unenlightened people are subject to suffering in various forms. This isn’t of course to say that we suffer all the time – life for most of us is a mix of pleasurable and painful experience - but what it does mean is that a thread of suffering is woven right through the tapestry of individual lives: bodily pain, the loss of a relationship, fear of future unhappiness and a basic sense of lack are all forms of suffering that we will all encounter at some time or other. The tradition goes on to say that all emotional and mental suffering is due to our inability to see that everything is subject to change and nothing mundane can be relied on to make us happy. This goes in particular for our own individual self, which is no more than an ever-changing flux of passing physical, emotional and mental events which change as our conditions change. But we believe that this self is somehow fixed and unchanging, fundamentally separate from the world around it – and the only way to bridge the gap - to be happy - is through things like material possessions, relationships, membership of groups of one kind or another - and status. And when they fail to satisfy us - which they inevitably do - we suffer.
Which brings us back to my uncomfortable experience. My sense of identity revolves, as it does for everyone else, around strong and fixed ideas of who I am. Here are just a few of them: I am a capable, professional translator, able to hold my head up high in the world of work. But to be told out of the blue that I might not be as capable and professional as I thought has delivered a stiff challenge to this sense of my self, and I’ve been observing how my ego has been thrashing about like a landed fish trying to hold on to my certainty – they must be wrong, I must defend myself, how dare they…? This has been very painful. Yet, objectively speaking, the facts are simple: if they’re wrong, and I’m as good as I think I am, then there’s no problem. If I’m not, I can learn from the experience and improve – again, no problem. This doesn’t suddenly make me a bad or worthless person. But because this sense of self is so strong – yet so easily challenged – it’s very difficult to be rational.
What I’ve been trying to do is observe the suffering brought about by the gyrations of my mind and understand as deeply as I can that the cause of my own suffering is my sense of separate selfhood. Not easy, but it has kept things in perspective. Freedom from suffering isn’t to be found in blaming others for our unhappiness – the only way to free ourselves is to take on board that what really makes us unhappy is our strong sense of self. So, the next time someone criticises you, consider this: either they have a point, which will provide an opportunity for you to grow and develop, or they don’t, so why get upset about it?