We Don’t Duel Anymore

My coaching clients are so smart and funny. I learn things from them daily and I’m often walking around laughing to myself thinking about some of the hysterically funny things they say. Recently, one of my clients, who has had some frustrating moments with others in the work force, told me that the problem with the world today is that, “We can’t duel anymore.” Of course, I couldn’t stop laughing at that comment and yet later, I thought of just how brilliant his thoughts were. 

We live in a highly conflictual, intense, chaotic world. Being aggressive, rude, and name calling seem relatively normal these days. Some of our leaders speak this way. Influencers and podcasters seem to get popular by being outwardly cruel to others. Sometimes many of us would like to just have an old-fashioned duel to silence some of the hate mongers in our world. Is dueling hate mongering? Asking for a friend (me) and my client. The desire to silence the noise and the cruelty seems understandable to me. Many of us are limiting our news and social media intake because the content is affecting our mental health and our faith in humanity. Sometimes I’d like to just scream, “Shut the hell up!” to all of the cruelty and divisiveness that we see in our country and the world.

My client seems to feel similarly. When those loud cruel voices get closer, such as within our organization or our homes, that feels like too much to manage. A duel sounds pretty good at that point. History suggests that men (It was almost all men who dueled.) dueled because they felt the other had spoken badly of them or those they cared about. Sometimes dueling was in reaction to the other’s behavior and frequently it was about what one said about the other and then they challenged each other to a duel. Check out “Hamilton” for a powerful lesson on dueling. Once they dueled, there was a clear winner and . . . a dead person. 

I’m confident my client doesn’t actually want to kill anyone and yet I get his desire to want some people to stop talking, to stop their cruelty, and to shut the heck up. Since we can’t really duel these days and violence isn’t a great choice, what are we to do with all of this horrible rhetoric in our world? One thing we can do is to tune down or tune off all of the negativity found in social media and some of the news sources. The other thing we can do is to have faith in ourselves and our ability to manage really stressful and conflictual situations. Knowing that we can not just survive another day, but that we can thrive if we choose to is powerful knowledge. 

When I go through my day muttering about how awful the world is and how terrible some people are, I feel pretty awful myself. And although some people are pretty awful, I can choose to focus on them or to focus on the really wonderful people in my life like my family, friends, colleagues, and clients. There is joy in the world, there is kindness, and there are people who want to treat each other with respect and openness. It’s at times hard to find them because the cruel voices seem to be the loudest. I urge you not to give up in seeking the time and comfort that comes when you are with wonderful, happy, and incredibly kind people. I’m lucky to not have to look too far because I have clients who gleefully and playfully tell me how much they’d like to have a return to duels.

Love,