Nope. Not Today. (Or, Why It's Ridiculously Important To Keep Your Edge)
"Take the edge off."
Be wary when people say this phrase to you.
No, be more than wary. Run like fuck.
Because you don't want to lose your edge. Your edge is a fabulous thing. Or at least I'm guessing it is. Unless you're already a raving lunatic and you're reading this post from a psychiatric ward or a jail cell, I'm betting you need your edge. It keeps you frosty and vibrant and ALIVE.
There are too many people telling us all to calm down and settle down.
I don't know about you, but once I sense a bandwagon, I get suspicious. I don't like bandwagons. Group think makes me crazy. If four people agree I must do something, I want to do the exact opposite.
Or if people start saying this sort of thing:
"Calm down. That's just life."
"Deal with it."
"That's just the way things are."
Oh, please.
I was listening to Marianne Williamson the other day and she said this: "Where would we be if the abolitionists had taken the edge off?"
Think about that.
Where would we be if everybody throughout history had said "That's just the way things are"? What if Gandhi took the edge off? Or Martin Luther King?
Harriet Tubman?
Nelson Mandela?
How about Jesus taking the edge off?
FDR?
Churchill?
Joan of Arc?
Susan B. Anthony?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
(We could play this game all day.)
Hey, Malala, take the edge off.
Hell no.
Change is made by people a bit edgy, those who stood up and said nope, not today.
People like Rosa Parks.
Then, change is pushed through by people more near the middle, by moms and dads who don't want their grandkids to be ashamed of them one day.
That's how change happens. But the ones with the edges start it all.
I used to have a friend who told me I needed a little Xanax to take the edge off and "Smooth me out." She also tried to get me to use Botox to smooth out my face. Notice I said "used to have." I didn't get the Xanax or the Botox. I got a new friend instead.
See, if your friends find you too intense, too strong, too much ... then maybe you need new friends.
Maybe you need new friends of the kind who adore your intensity and your strength. Now, I'm not saying ditch all your friends, but what I am saying is take your head out of the clouds and really listen to what your friends are saying—and then make your decisions about the kind of people you want in your life. You might say "Oh yeah, MaryFred is right! I need to chill because I'm a little too amped lately" or you might just look at MaryFred's texts and turn the phone over.
Now, I get that it's easier not to have edges. It's easier to numb yourself. It's easier to not stick out, to simply complain into your drink instead of argue for your points or with your CEO. Bad shit can happen to you. Believe me, I know.
But I guess I'm at the point in my life where I can see a bit of the accounting column: the win/loss lines get clearer as you age, and I know the only things that make me proud at this point are:
my kids
my kindnesses
and the times I stood up and said, "Hell no. Not on my watch."
You know, the kind of shit that you can tell your mom and she'll say "I'm proud of you" and mean it. No lip service. Just "You're a good human being."
And that's what we should want to be more than anything, damn good human beings—and we should want to raise our children to be damn good human beings too.
And that's why I don't want you to mistake keeping your edge for permission to be an asshole. Nobody gets permission to be an asshole. When I hear people rail about "political correctness" I only hear their same voice saying, "But I want permission to still be an asshole."
Nope. Permission denied. Reapply in 30 days for further denial.
In this life, it helps to figure out when to be nice, when to be rough, and when to apologize. But it doesn't mean you get permission to be unkind.
So, keep your edge. Stay frosty, stay real, stay you. But also strive to be a kind you.
The greatest moments in our lives occur in our greatest moments of kindness, of vulnerability, of love. Even our greatest acts of courage are rooted in massive heartbreaking vulnerability, even in combat. Think about it. Courage comes from daring like a crazy mofo.
Courage comes from people with their edges still intact.
So, dare like the kindest badass this world has ever seen.
But do not do not do not take that edge off.