I Stopped Explaining Myself to People, and This Is Why

There was a time when I wanted everyone to understand me. We all have been there, right? If someone misunderstood something we said, we explained it. Or if someone thought badly about us, we explained ourselves. If we made a decision that somebody did not like, we gave them ten reasons for making that decision. Right? I thought explanation could solve everything. I thought if I simply found the right words, people would finally say, "Oh, now I understand," and things like that.

But slowly I discovered something very, very different. People do not always misunderstand us because we have explained it badly. That is not the main reason. They misunderstand us because they have already decided what to believe about us. You see, that is the thing, and that is when I stopped explaining myself to people unnecessarily. I am not saying don't explain. I am not saying close your mouth always. Unnecessary explanation already means that you are wasting your time. This is not because I became wiser, not because I became stronger, and so on and so on. And certainly not because I stopped caring. I stopped because I finally understood the absurdity of trying to control another person's mind.

You see, for me, this is one of the strangest things about being human. We spend so much of our lives trying to manage how other people see us. We explain our intentions. We defend our decisions. We correct their opinions, and so on and so on. We even tell them what really happened. Right? We give them their missing details. And after all that, they can still believe whatever they want. That is the first truth. I can control my words. I cannot control what your mind does with my words. And once I understood this, I became tired of explaining unnecessarily.

Imagine I am standing in front of a window. The window is dirty. I tell someone the world outside is beautiful. They look through the window and say, "No, the world is ugly." So I start explaining. I say, "No, look carefully. There are trees. Look at the sky. Look at the sunlight," and all the blah blah blah stuff. They still say, "It is ugly." So I clean the window. Still they say, "I do not see what you see." They might see the trees, the world. At some point, I have to ask myself, am I trying to show them the world, or am I trying to force them to see it through my eyes? Are you seeing what I am saying? That is what explaining ourselves often becomes: not communication, but control. We want another person to accept our version of ourselves and also our version of reality.

Look at so many people debating and fighting. They want to prove their point, not to communicate. We want them to say, "Yes, you are good. Your point matters. Right? Yes, you had a reason. Yes, I understand you. Yes, you are not the person I thought you were," and so on and so on. And when they do not say it, we explain again. That is when explanation comes. This is where the absurdity begins. We are trying to become the author of someone else's thought. What pathetic thing is that? Nobody gave us that job, and nobody can do it.

Think about a simple situation. Let us say I cancel a meeting because I am exhausted. Someone says, "You do not care about me." I say, "No, that was not true. I was tired." They say, "You are always like this." Right? Then you explain. You say, "I had a difficult day." Then they say, "You have always given excuses, right?" Then you explain again. Then they say, "That is not true," and so on and so on. They say, "That is what everyone says." Now look at what happened. The original event was simple. I cancelled the meeting, and that is it. But suddenly I am standing in a courtroom defending my entire character. One small action has become a trial, and I am both the accused and the lawyer. This is exhausting. And the worst part is that none of these things actually matter, because the person may have already decided what you are.

This is why I stopped explaining myself to people who are committed to misunderstanding me. There is a difference between someone who does not understand me and someone who does not want to understand me. The first person asks questions. The second person collects evidence. The first person says, "What did you mean?" Right? The second person says, "I know what you meant," and so on and so on. And there is no explanation powerful enough to defeat a conclusion that someone has emotionally chosen. For me, that is an important distinction. I am still willing to explain myself when communication is necessary. If I hurt someone, I can explain. If I made a mistake, I can admit it. Right? If there is a conclusion, I can clarify it. But I can no longer feel responsible for convincing everyone that I am a good person, and so on and so on.

You see, the whole problem here is because we do not know who we are. We all think that we are this body and mind, and get into a loop of communicating, explaining myself, and things like that. A lot of people mail me asking, "Aswin, how do you deal with negative comments or negative people?" I only tell them, why deal with it? If it is negative, why deal with it in the first place? It is as simple as that. You see, there is a saying: those who mind don't bother, and those who bother don't mind. Very simple. If it is a negative thing, don't deal with it. That is how you have to move forward.

You see, a flower that focuses on blooming attracts bees. But a flower that focuses on attracting will end up with house flies. That is the question that I always ask myself: am I focusing on myself, or am I trying to please people? The moment I try to please people, that is the downfall. I don't do that. So it is important to understand who you actually are. You all think, even I initially thought, that we are this body and mind, and we have to visit a guru, or listen to people like me, or read scriptures, do this, do that, in order to know the truth. That is all so narrow-minded stuff, because you are divine from day one. You have nothing else apart from the awareness, which is the origin of all origins. It is on you that the entire drama of this world is existing.

I understand, now some people might ask a question: how is that possible? The thing is that the person whom you think yourself to be is an opinion. I am not lying. Even science would agree with me. Even science would say the person whom you think yourself to be is just a character or a collection of memories, desires, and so on and so on and so on. You really do not exist. Only the awareness exists, and that is the truth. This can be understood not by listening to me. Yes, it can be understood only when you turn your mind within and see things for yourself. You have been the awareness from day one. Once you understand that you are divine, then you yourself will know what to do and what not to do. Even your mistakes will become divine. Even your actions will become divine. To the world it might look stupid, but who cares? You see the world, whether you are good or bad, however much you give, it will not take. It will not be sufficient for it. So why bother? Focus on yourself and keep moving.