I’m in the middle of a legal battle with a former landlord. I can’t say much about it yet. But dealing with it has been all-consuming for the past two months. Stressful, time-intensive, and the kind of expensive that makes my lower back hurt.
Some days I feel compelled to fight. Other days I want to walk away from the whole mess. And then there are times when I just sit around wondering, "Why do people treat each other this way?"
I’ve always wanted to be successful not just financially, but spiritually as well. The idea of sacrificing one for the other has never appealed to me. I’ve never been interested in work that requires taking advantage of others to get what you want. So when I encounter people who operate this way, I’m genuinely confused.
How can you sleep knowing you are harming rather than helping others? That your income depends on their loss? What kind of life is that?
But through this experience, I've learned something interesting.
Being in a fight can provide clarity. Even if it's stressful and exhausting.
It gives you purpose. A clear enemy and a defined goal. You know exactly where to put your focus. Whether it's strategizing, executing, or recovering. There’s no time for existential wondering because you have a job to do.
And surprisingly, at times, that focus has given me less anxiety, not more.
Even in the stress of a legal battle, I’ve experienced less existential dread than I have on a mellow Tuesday afternoon when everything was fine.
Because when you’re in a fight, you don’t have time to ask the big questions. You don’t sit there wondering if you’re living the right life, pursuing the right goals, becoming the right person. You’re too busy surviving.
A fight gives you something to do instead of something to feel.
And maybe that’s the trap we don’t talk about enough.
We fill our lives with conflicts. With competition at work, disputes with neighbors, manufactured drama, endless striving against something or someone.
And sure, some of these battles are righteous. Some need to be fought.
But I wonder how many of them are just easier than having to face ourselves.
It’s more comfortable to fight a competitor or the system than to step back and ask, “Am I building a life that's meaningful? Am I becoming someone I'm proud to be?”
Those questions can be terrifying. Because they don’t have clear answers.
Viktor Frankl wrote, "The meaning of life is to give life meaning." But giving life meaning requires stopping long enough to figure out what that meaning is.
Instead we stay in motion. We look for battles to fight and mountains to climb. We tell ourselves we’re driven and ambitious. And maybe that’s true.
But maybe it’s also true that we’re avoiding the harder work of sitting still.
So here I am, in the middle of a fight, aware of the pattern but still caught in its trap. Because knowing that conflict can be a distraction doesn’t make it less real.
Battles still need fighting. Wrongs still need righting.
Maybe the awareness itself is the gift.
Noticing that I feel less anxious while fighting than I do on a peaceful afternoon is worth paying attention to.
Maybe the real decision isn’t fight or flight.
Maybe it’s what I’m avoiding by staying in the fight.
Talk soon,
Andrew
