When to Fight and When to Flee

Ben:

When I was in the Air Force I played Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).

For those unfamiliar with D&D, you and a group of friends share an adventure in a fantasy setting much like Lord of the Rings or King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. One person in the group opts to be the dungeon master (DM). The DM’s role is to create the world the rest of the players adventure in by choosing the people, places, monsters, events, and treasure the group will encounter, and then weaves it all into a storyline that unfolds as the game is played. Good DMs are imaginative, resourceful, intelligent, know how motivate the players, and keep things moving along. Our DM, Chuck, was all of the above and then some.

Players choose their character race and class, and make up a bit of back story. A player can be Brodus, a human warrior coming down from the north to make a name for himself, or Dannar, a mysterious Elvish wizard seeking a mythical spellbook lost ages ago. The choices are endless.

Players usually fall into two categories. The first group wants to roll dice, hack monsters to bits, and collect the treasure so they can hack even stronger monsters to bits by rolling even more dice and collecting even better treasure and so on. The second group is all about roleplaying. They speak in bad British accents, refer to their cup of Mountain Dew as ‘ale,’ and do everything short of donning tights and puffy shirts and swinging from the light fixtures to immerse themselves in their roles. Our party of adventurers was made up of people from both camps and they rarely saw eye to eye.

On one particularly contentious evening, Chuck had had enough of our bickering. While our group was travelling, Chuck placed a group of a hundred monsters along our way. Our monster-hackers wanted to charge in and our role-players wanted to give rousing speeches; so we did both, and our party was wiped out. When both groups demanded Chuck tell us what we should have done, he looked at us as he was putting the game away, shrugged, and stated simply, “Run away.”

The reason I shared this lengthy anecdote with you is to encourage you to take a look at all the battles or potential battles you’re facing and think about whether you or not you should fight them.

A few years before I married Esther, I was in a very unhealthy long-term relationship that took quite a toll on me. I was on the receiving end of some really negative behaviors and should have left that particular battlefield long before it ended. However, I never did. I endured all the unhappiness and uncertainty because I thought I was doing the right thing.

I want to emphasize something to you, dear readers. If the other person in your life, whether business partner, friend, family member, or romantic interest, is mistreating you in some way and refuses to do the right thing, then the right thing for you IS retreat. No dishonor, no shame, no failure can be hoisted upon you. You are a PERSON and by virtue of your existence have every right to be safe, dealt with honorably, and treated with fidelity.

Not all difficulties should be run away from, however. If the difficult, uncomfortable situation you’re in is helping you heal, giving you valuable life experience and knowledge, or in some other way helping you grow, by all means, endure!

Consult people you trust and listen to their counsel. People outside your situation can see better than you and will help you decide whether to charge into that field of monsters or take the secret path behind them.

Some things are never worth the price and some things always are.

And now, I don my puffy shirt and am off to swing from tavern chandeliers.

WHERE’S MY ALE?

Esther:

That’s the second time this month we’ve had to replace the ceiling fan.

Yes, some things should be fled.

I stayed for over a year with an abuser (and exposed my kids to him) when he should never have gotten a second date. For almost four years, I allowed a bullying coworker and a toxic workplace to chip away at my mental and physical health.

And some things should be fought for.

The only thing I’ve ever wanted to do with my life was write, but didn’t pursue it until recently because I believed people when they said it wasn’t a real career. Three years ago I was weary of bad relationships but didn’t know how to find and keep a good one.

My boundaries were turned around for most of my life. I was always letting bad things through my door and locking it against the good. Maybe you can relate.

Knowing when to fight and when to flee is not one of those life skills I learned at an early age. Even now it sits on my tongue like a foreign language, but I’m learning it. I no longer subject myself to disrespect from others. I have a peaceful, fulfilling marriage with my favorite person.

Climbing out of my old life was possible. And hard. And worth it. And the more I learned from people who were healthier than me, the more I started to feel it in my gut when something was worth working at and when it wasn’t.

And, for my catchy one-liner ending, I’m borrowing Ben’s statement because I can’t sum it up any better than that.

Some things are never worth the price and some things always are.