A Guide To Cultivating Your Passive Aggressiveness And Fear Of Confrontation

SPEND YEARS CULTIVATING UNCONSCIOUS ‘I’M NOT WORTHY’ BELIEFS AND A FEAR OF CONFRONTATION

As you come of age, make sure to develop a very generalized stance that always prioritizes others’ needs and desires before your own. These priorities shouldn’t be based on principle; the foundation of your stance should be an unconscious feeling that if people seem like they know more than you, they simply do know more than you. In general, the default experience should be that people you’re intimidated by Know What They’re Talking About and you don’t. (Note that this maxim is a toxic loop in and of itself, wherein the automatic experience of someone you’re intimidated by Knowing What They’re Talking About results in an incrementally higher amount of intimidation, which spurs an even deeper experience of inferiority, etc.)

BEGIN TO FEEL OVERWHELMED BY THE FACT THAT THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVE OPINIONS

As you grow older, realize that your point of view is not the only reasonable one possible, and that there are, theoretically, limitless ways one can interpret a situation – tons within relative standards of reason. Therefore, anyone’s point of view can be empathized with. Subsequently, begin to feel that your point of view will always be, in some way, wrong, or leaving important variables unaccounted for. Or, at least, become incredibly suspicious of taking hard stances.

All this weird reasoning in which you’re unintentionally engaging should lead to two things, during conflict: 1) you’re more likely to be convinced into agreement with an opinion that puts someone else’s needs before yours, and 2) confidence in your ability to ‘know things’ is further eroded by the fact that it might not, in fact, be possible to know anything at all.

DEVELOP INNATE BAFFLEMENT TO FORCEFULLY-PUT ARGUMENTS THAT SEEM LOGICALLY COHERENT

As time moves forward – perhaps during your high school or college years – meet seemingly logical arguments that are presented firmly, forcefully, and a with righteous degree of self-confidence with what is basically a sort of mental diarrhea. In other words, when in conflict with someone who’s not scared shitless of confrontation, your mind should go completely blank – you should be totally unable to form any sort of reasonable response to what’s being said. Further, as explained in the point above, you agree with what’s being said – you’re actually, temporarily convinced by the stance offered. Combined with your early-developed fear of confrontation, developing innate bafflement to forcefully-put arguments that seem logically coherent will ensure that even if you do get into confrontation, you quickly get out of it by losing hard.

FAIL TO REALIZE AND BELIEVE IN THE FOLLOWING IDEAS

1. You are a definitely not-insane human being who has the capacity of reason. Therefore, your opinions can be considered valid.
2. Confidence is not correlated with correctness.
3. You know much less about how other people see you than you think you do.
4. Being ‘wrong’ happens to everyone, every day, their entire lives.
5. You are entitled to be ‘right.’
6. You are entitled to act ‘right’ when you believe you are ‘right.’
7. You are entitled to argue that you’re ‘right’ when you believe that you are ‘right.’
8. Because objective ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ do not exist, arguments can be understood as points of view.
9. Because objective ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ do not exist, conflict can be understood as an exercise in compromise between two points of view rather than a battle of egos, despite any attitude one ‘brings to the table.’
10. No one likes excessive passive aggressiveness.
11. Being passive aggressive is a way to procrastinate.
12. If you’re not a sociopath, it’s okay to get what you want.

MAKE UP FOR FEAR WITH PASSIVE AGGRESSIVENESS

Develop ways to complain or express negative sentiments in a way that implies your negativity while, superficially, expressing neutrality, curiosity, and/ or objective interest. Attach barbs to people’s arguments with endless qualifiers and implicit expressions that you don’t agree – but never disagree outright. Show disapproval of one’s actions with repeated questioning (i.e. “Are you sure you want to do that? Do you want to do this instead?”) rather than direct statements (“Please stop doing that, I don’t like it”). Tell people you want them to do something for you by asking them if they want to do it for you, rather than asking them if they will do it for you (i.e. “For some reason my laptop’s not letting me log in. I know you’re good with computers and I have to go do this other thing, so, do you want to figure it out? I know you’re busy.” vs. “Will you do me a favor and figure out this problem for me?”). Conduct conflict over notes left on the kitchen table.

ALWAYS BE SORRY FOR BEING RIGHT

On occasions when your stance is very obviously the ‘right’ one, apologize for it. “I’m so sorry for being late, my wife, she just had the baby an hour ago. It was totally unprofessional of me to show up at this meeting late. My most sincere apologies.” Practice this behavior in positions of inherent authority: “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I think you, ahem, may have not seen that there is a line here and that you’ve cut in front of it? So sorry to bother you about this…”

DEVELOP A ‘CHILL’ PHILOSOPHY

Begin to believe in a philosophy completely justifies being passive at all times. The philosophy should mostly hold that conflict ‘isn’t worth it.’ In other words, one of the primary tenets behind your philosophy should be that your desires are not worth any anxiety or discomfort that would be involved if those desires were incongruous with another’s and as such presented conflict. If the above steps are followed, maintaining such a chill philosophy will be a relatively easy, completely sustainable endeavor.