These are everyone’s three favorite words in the English language, aren’t they? When we say them, we instantaneously erase history, and begin time at the point when we were the clearly aggrieved party.
But the tricky part of history (and time itself for that matter), is that the point we designate as the beginning never is. Rather, it’s simply an arbitrary checkpoint on an ever-flowing continuum of cause and effect.
Take the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
- Ukraine: YOU STARTED IT when you invaded us!
- Russia: No, YOU STARTED IT when you flirted with bringing NATO weapons onto our borders.
- Ukraine: Only because YOU STARTED IT by occupying us as a Soviet colony.
- Russia: Only because YOU STARTED IT by aligning with Hitler against us.
On a smaller level, shrink it to a marriage.
- Wife: YOU STARTED IT when you were unfaithful!
- Husband: No, YOU STARTED IT when you were verbally abusive and neglectful.
- Wife: No, YOU STARTED IT when you invited your mother to stay with us for a month without asking me.
- Husband: No, YOU STARTED IT when you invited YOUR mother to stay with us for a month without asking ME!
Rinse, repeat for the economy. The Middle East. Spats among friends. Colonialism and migration. Disagreements among colleagues. Legal disputes over the damn ottoman.
(It’s always about the ottoman, isn’t it?)
The truth is, no one ever really started anything. And the sooner warring parties can see that, the sooner they can ground themselves in the present moment and ask the far more pertinent question, “What now?”
Because the beauty of a flowing continuum is that it contains within it the possibility to flow to a higher state of consciousness. One that’s rooted in non-linear solutions and removes the paradigm of blame from the discussion. One that allows cooler heads to prevail, and the parties involved to ask, “How can we ditch the past and instead lean into a future where we both win?”
But that would require parting with our three favorite words first.
