What are you fighting for? A Valuable Question to Ask

Ever feel like you're fighting endlessly at work or in personal situations? I'm sharing a valuable lesson a friend recently taught me.

Sharing a meal, in many cultures, is a way to increase bonding while talking about what’s going on in everyone’s lives. In my Arabic language classes eg, I was taught that Arab cuisine is made in large quantities because it’s common for people to sit on the floor and share this food together, often from the same platter.

Photo of people dining by Jay Wennington on Unsplash

I observed a similar practice during my trips to China too, where dishes are placed in the centre of the table and people can use their chopsticks to eat together.

Though sharing platters are not customary in Sindhi culture (since double-dipping is considered rude or unhygienic) it was common for my family to sit and eat together at mealtimes. Our plates and utensils were separate but the collective focus would be on how things were going at school, work, and in the community we lived in.

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On Sundays, our meals would start and end late thanks to the never-ending conversations at the dining table. This family standard operating practice, even though we lived in the Caribbean, is one of the things I miss the most to date.

Thankfully, I seized the opportunity to dine with a friend this week. It was a nice time to bond, listen to what she had to share, and ask deeper questions while enjoying good food.

I was intrigued when she shared how tiring it is to fight for the simple things in life, such as feeling seen and understood by people in our community. As immigrants in foreign countries eg, we’re often seen as the intruder, the oppressed, the underprivileged, or the uncivilised.

We tend to fight for things that are not worth it and forget to fight for things that matter.

In families or social circles, on the other hand, certain members can be seen as inferior, while others are labelled cuckoo, weak, or the black sheep. It made a lot of sense, this observation of hers. Perhaps you can relate to it too?

This feeling of having to fight for a place of your own, for that basic recognition of your intelligence, existence, character, and even your opinion, is like being at a dinner table where people may look at but don’t see you. It’s a meal where not everyone gets the chance to speak or ask questions equally.

In other cases, your views or opinions are dismissed by an authoritative figure in the work/family atmosphere or the rest of the people at your table. There is no way you can bond in these situations. So, sometimes, you end up fighting. You speak up for yourself, asking to be seen, and for your views to be considered - in ways that may not go down well or work only in a few instances. The fighting, no matter how calmly or gently it is done, may lead to more labelling or exclusion.

We both agreed that fighting for people to see us as we are, and understand us aside from the prejudices they have formed is a gamble. It’s not a fight you can engage in every day. It gets tiring. It gets cumbersome. It’s not fun.

And at some point, you stop caring, because you ask yourself: What are you fighting for? Do you aspire to change people’s view of you, even though you know it won’t happen? People are entitled to their views and no amount of convincing can change that unless they are willing to see things differently.

The consolation prize is that you’ll always have yourself and the benevolent universe who knows you underneath it all.

Reflection exercise

The next time you choose to embark on dinner table, social media, or workplace fights, you can ask yourself these three questions:

• What are you fighting for?

• What will change if you (don’t) fight?

• Will this fight, and all that you win or lose through it, be worth it tomorrow?

With gratitude,

Raksha