You are like an archetype with many faces. Most people would say you are good guy. Someone might call you bad guy. Someone might call you simple guy or complex guy; brave guy, frightened guy; secure guy, insecure guy; loving guy, unloving guy and so on. Some might just call you guy. How you are perceived depends upon someone’s experience, or, rather, their perception of their experiences they keep from the past.
Many of My children are bias-based toward their previous experiences with others, and their inclination or disinclination toward you really has nothing to do with you at all. You, also, do the same. How you see others pretty much is how you are looking at an aspect of yourself. You may see what you always see. You see what you think you see. You see what you once saw, and what you once saw made an indelible impression on you.
You may wish ill toward someone because of his or her lack of perception. Lack of perception is not yet a crime. It is not yet a federal crime when someone sees you a-miss, yet it would appear that you may often carry the idea that a mistake is no less than criminal. A mistake, yes. A crime, no. And sometimes another may perceive you a-right and you don’t like to concede to the possibility that you did indeed act in a certain way that does not present you in the best light. This is hard for you to bear, yet, on occasion, you have slipped. You may well be a good person who slipped up. Have you not on occasion slipped up?
Isn’t it all silly when you remind yourself that everything here on Earth is here only for a little while?
It will be a great step forward when you can come to a place where you no longer take so many things as an affront. Not taking on so much as an affront also means that you will not see the need to be defensive.
You are on the defensive when you think you have to explain or justify yourself. You give all kinds of reasons why you said what you said or did what you did. Perhaps an employer asks you to do something in a certain way. The employer means no offense. The employer has a preference. There is a tendency for you to go on and on the reasons why you acted in the way you did! The employer or teacher or your mother or whoever wasn’t attacking you. You presumed they were and you became defensive or even offensive, because of your assumptions. They were stating a preference. They never meant to imply that you were worthless or even mistaken to do what you do no matter the way you had chosen. They weren’t pointing to errors you made. They simply were asking you to do something another way.
When you are defensive, you tend to give reasons in your defense. When you are not defensive, then you simply answer, “Yes, I’ll do it this way.” If you keep your balance you may even add: “Glad to.”
I would wish that the two words, offensive and defensive, were removed from the face of the Earth. The concept of opposites sets up a trap. Where there is no offense perceived, there will be no defense.
There are other things to spend your energy on.
No matter how annoying someone may appear to you, it is yourself that you react to. Whatever someone may be like, it is yourself you are duelling with.
You have nothing to prove. Be unbiased.
No one has to be the way you would prefer them to be.
What are you going to spend your time on? Basically, at present, you spend your time and emotion fussing. Surely, there is something else you could spend your time on, for instance, peace or a sunny day, or a kindness, or time off from finding fault.