Never Explain!

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The more years I collect, the less time and attention I give to arguing, convincing, and explaining.

I love Benjamin Disraeli’s advice to “never explain, never complain.”

People who have known me for decades have noticed this shift.

But they think it’s because I’ve learned to manage my emotions.

They’re not wrong, but that’s only a small part of why I’ve become quieter in middle age.

The more significant reason is I’ve come to understand this profound life principle:

Time is limited.

We don’t know how much of it we have left.

If I do one thing with my time, I give up the chance to do another.

So, what will I choose to spend my precious remaining time and energy on?

When I coach young adults, one of the exercises we begin with is uncovering what truly matters to them. We do this by assessing their life values and clarifying how they express these values daily.

Once they clearly understand where to devote their time and attention, they naturally begin to disregard what I call “Vampire Activities”—those that drain our valuable resources.

For many of us, our top Vampire Activities are—unknowingly wasting our time arguing, convincing, and explaining.

This truth has taken center stage since I began sharing my personal views after the tragedy of October 7th.

Some people supported my point of view, and some dropped me immediately. Some wanted to teach me what they thought I didn’t understand, and some wanted me to explain myself further. Some people filled my feed with opposing material, and others with graphic material I had intentionally avoided to protect my nervous system.

It was so easy to fall into the trap of explaining myself and arguing with others to convince them of “the truth.”

But "the truth" varies for each person, and in my experience, the only effort that can change our belief of what is true is a person's willingness to expand, learn, and possibly evolve. More often, we find that those who believe in our point of view don’t need our explanations, and those who don’t won’t believe us anyway.

Refusing to explain, convince, and argue with others is not the same as giving up.  It’s not the same as agreeing or approving. It’s simply a show of priorities. Our power lies in our ability to choose our priorities.

Choose your priorities wisely, consciously, and with your endgame in mind.

Then, act on those priorities by choosing who you spend time with, where you spend your money, and what you give your precious attention to, rather than arguing, convincing, or explaining.

Your future self will thank you when she/he is closing this chapter we call our lifetime in a book whose number of pages remains a mystery.