Role Play

By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept - Paulo Coelho

—–

“Don’t be frightened, Pilar. Don’t just fall into playing a role.”

… “I don’t know what you mean by ‘playing a role.’”

“Some people always have to be doing battle with someone, sometimes even with themselves, battling with their own lives. So they begin to create a kind of play in their head, and they write the script based on their frustrations.”

“I know a lot of people like that. I know just what you mean.”

“But the worst part is that they cannot present the play by themselves,” he continued. “So they begin to invite other actors to join in.

“That’s what the fellow outside was doing. He wanted revenge for something, and he chose us to play a part. If we had accepted his restrictions, we’d be regretting it now. We would have been defeated. We would have agreed to participate in his miserable life and in his frustrations.

“The man’s aggression was easy to see, so it was easy for us to refuse the role he wanted us to play. But other people also ‘invite’ us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to agree, to offer advice, to participate.”

He looked into my eyes. “Be careful. When you join in that game, you always wind up losing.”

—–

The truth in this statement is extremely striking, especially that last part stating how we sometimes take the role of victims in the play that other people enact. In my life, I have met a lot of people like those mentioned – the whiners, the pessimists, those who constantly focus on the problems in their life, those who always find fault in the things around them, and those who refuse to see their blessings.

And these are dangerous people. They often feed on pity. They prey on unsuspecting individuals around them – friends, family members, acquaintances – always in search of empathy. The most dangerous thing about them is the fact that they are contagious. They can infect the people around them with their twisted beliefs.

I have to admit that I’ve experienced taking both roles – being the prey and the predator. It is hard to resist the temptation, and one can only do so when one already acquires complete awareness. In my life right now, my prayer is this:

May I not turn into a fellow like the one mentioned by Coelho in the passage. May I recognize the blessings before I see the faults, so that I won’t have to live a miserable life and won’t be tempted to become a predator in the first place. May I recognize the people who invite me to play victims in their own story, and may I have the courage to refuse the role that they are giving me. And may I help others do the same.