Petty Tyrant Management

In university in the late 1980’s a groovy, spiritually-hip boyfriend introduced me to the works of Carlos Castenada. Though long since outed as a fraud, a few of his ideas have stayed with me more than 25 years after the fact. One of them is his notion of the Petty Tyrant.

The idea is that death is the ultimate tyranny and anything causing you to agonize or otherwise suffer that doesn’t result in actual death is a lesser (petty) tyranny: “A minor petty tyrant is a tormentor who can be fearsome and inflict misery, but who does not hold any real power over the life and death of others” (The Fire From Within)

Most of us have had at least one petty tyrant in our lives. These are people who make your life miserable by intimidating, harassing and generally undermining you and your self worth at every turn. Their sense of superiority and authority is as inherent as it is delusional.

They’re the person around whom you’re hyper-alert because unexpected, emotional missile launches are the norm. It’s the person you either go to great lengths to avoid or who you’ve decided to confront head-on, making it your personal mission to change their hell-making ways for the betterment of all.

A thing you already know but I’m going to say anyway: You can only change yourself. No, really. A petty tyrant is about as poor an investment of your life energy as you can make.

Petty tyrants can show up anywhere in our lives and often when they do, it’s someone we can’t entirely extricate ourselves from. It’s not, for example, always the proverbial mean or bad boss whom you can quit. Rather, it might be your micro-managing mother, your patronizing son, a neighbour, a teacher, an ex spouse you must co-parent with or a critical, controlling co-worker. None of these are relationships you can simply decamp from.

I feel you.

I’ve had a petty tyrant in my life for years, and this week as I talk my exasperation down from the 40th floor yet again and dig deep to respond with some level of calm and consciousness to the latest madness, I’m wondering what I can do differently to create a change. Not in him, but in me.

I long for peace. Looooong for it. A hallmark of the petty tyrant is their relentlessness. They’re tireless in their need to control, demean and demand. They’re brutally consistent in their ability to destabilize you quickly and effectively, provoking you with the same words and behaviours over and over again.

Did I mention relentless? As surely as autumn follows summer, so too will one bout of tyrannical retching follow another, forever and ever, amen.

The petty tyrant will challenge your sense of justice; of what’s “fair.” Because despite their bad behaviour they seem to act in a world where consequence – is of no consequence. This, for me, has been the greatest challenge.

For years I defended myself. Being furiously articulate and scathing made me feel like I’d accomplished something in the moment but ultimately maintained the status quo (see: “can’t change” above). Because a petty tyrant thrives on your feedback, your attention and your energy, reacting only escalates and perpetuates the cycle. This merry-go-round of aggression is a satisfying pay-off that practically ensures a repeat offense, while depleting your own sense of power.

So that doesn’t work.

For most of the past two years I’ve straight-up willed myself to stop reacting altogether. Two things have happened as a result: 1) It’s changed the petty tyrant's behaviour not one iota 2) in practicing not reacting – I’ve genuinely ceased to react.

There is no emotional charge left for me. In acting “as if,” I became.

So that works-ish.

When you need a lesson, the teacher arrives and all that New Age jazz. As Castaneda wrote, “My benefactor used to say that one who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one.” OK, so I’m super lucky, and if you have one of these horrors in your life then “Yippeee!!” You are too.

The gist is that a petty tyrant offers the chance to learn to stay steady and deliberate in the midst of an emotional shitstorm. When you’ve internalized that their behaviour is a reflection of them and not of you; when you’re no longer thrown off balance or aggravated by this person, you‘ve gotten the lesson and are “free.”

Executive coach David N Peck, former COO at Charles Schwab summarizes this way: “at our worst a minor petty tyrant fuels our distraction, ongoing stress, frustration, anger, fear, dread, loathing, etc.” but at our best, “we gain strength by practicing boundaries, healthy choices, detachment from ego and empathy for the pain of others.”

This is a solid argument. But what if, like me, you’ve gotten the lessons - they've become a deeply ingrained part of you. I mean, shouldn’t the teacher now leave…? You passed! Class dismissed! Next!

Alas.

Sometimes, contrary to what New Agey teachings would have us believe, all things are not working towards some magical pinnacle of unity and closure. At least not how we traditionally understand closure. As in “finished.”

If you’ve learned detachment, empathy and boundaries and have endless opportunities to practice so that the lessons are well entrenched, how do you make sense of what this person continues to mean in your life? How do you realign when this person is suddenly generous or kind, for instance (because part of the madness is that their aggression isn’t the only note they play)? How do you deal with the exhaustion of the never ending debacle?

And perhaps most of all, how do you come to terms with the injustice that there may never be an obvious consequence for their actions?

Which brings me to a revelation that’s been brewing: In order to get the peace I crave, I think I have to give up - at least to some degree and at least in this case - my sense of what’s right. Which is to say, I need to accept that sometimes, there simply is no justice.

I’ve been sitting with this idea for a few weeks, and it’s become...OK. There have been many intervenors at multiple levels of authority in my situation - and nothing. It's coming to terms with the fact that not only is it true that often there is no justice in life, but it isn’t personal either. It just is.

As the idea has settled, it’s had the side benefit of freeing me from the frustration and expectation that things will somehow be different. Yes, that's some peace. I’ve also come to appreciate that lessons worth learning, like how to stay centered amid another’s gale-force emotional winds, how to depersonalize abuse and how to kindly set clear boundaries have no expiration date. The result is that sometimes it turns out the teacher in your life is as constant as you wish they weren’t.

So, all of that isn't what I was hoping for. But, yeah...

It works.