The 3 Poison Pills:How to Make Decisions for Your Life Without Initiating Your Own Demise

"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!"

If you have not seen Danny Kaye in The Court Jester (1955) you really are missing out.  With its witty word play, balance of physical humor with dramatic (sometimes overly) characters, and Danny Kaye’s naturally humorous expressiveness, The Court Jester easily lands itself in the pantheon of comedy classics.  Highly recommend! 

In the scene referenced above, Kaye is placed in a situation where he is confused as a mighty warrior, a knight that is going to save the princess, and thus, the kingdom at large.  However, he is no mighty warrior…he is a lowly Court Jester (the namesake of the movie)…who has no idea how to fight…much less win in a battle.  So there is a cunning plan for a pellet of poison to be placed in the drink of his opponent while his drink is to remain safe.  Soon enough a little rhyme is created to help him to remember what cup he is supposed to drink from in order to avoid a poisonous fate. 

Simple enough.

Oh, but it would not be a comedy if it were that simple!  No, cups get changed, the rhyme gets switched…multiple times.  IT BECOMES A CONFUSING MESS. 

Panic ensues. 

Kaye then begins to try to recite the different variations of the rhymes…misremembering….trying to correct himself…stumbling over out of date aspects of the rhyme….all the while the tension of the moment builds as he walks towards the challenger’s circle…

Will he pick the correct cup for the ceremonial toast? Or will he consume his own doom?

“The chalice with the pa... the flagon with the cha... the floizle with the flagon is the chalice with the poison.”

Reminds me of one of my other favorite comedies…

How often do we find ourselves in similar situations?  I mean…we never find ourselves mistaken for a knight, but you know what I mean.  We often find ourselves in situations where tensions suddenly rise and our anxiety shoots through the roof. 

“I am not cut out for this.”

“I do not want to make them angry with me and ruin our relationship.”

“What the heck are they doing?” 

Any of these situations seemingly are thrust upon us…which can add feelings of outrage, being taken advantage of, or a myriad of other emotions that tell us that we need to re-evaluate our boundaries or even just ACTUALLY set some. 

Maybe it’s not even a boundary situation.  Maybe you are learning how to voice your feelings and needs to others.  Maybe it’s in the simple decisions like, “What are you going to do this weekend?”  We have to make decisions all of the time and these tension-like moments can be sneaky and subtle. 

Sometimes subtle feelings of pressure are the hardest to identify in real time. 

Ugh…The sneaky sneaks. 

Isn’t it interesting that when we start changing our life or when we establish boundaries there’s a seemingly instant challenge by some outside force that feels determined to derail your progress?  Here I am trying to make my life better and trying to grow in my own health and before I know it I am stuck in front of a trained warrior trying NOT TO DIE!!!! 

Which cup to choose? 

I don’t want to drink poison.

In order to continue our journey towards a thriving life we need to understand the 3 poisons to decision making so we can recognize the poison before it touches our lips and sabotages our own progress. 

Don’t know them?  Don’t worry.  I got your back. 

Poison 1: Anger

“Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,  and give no opportunity to the devil.” Eph 4:26-27 ESV

This is most likely the easiest poison to recognize…and unfortunately the easiest to grab a hold of and throw down the gullet.  Anger is an important emotion.  Usually it is a signal for us to understand that there has been some form of boundary violation.  Think about it, if someone slaps you in the face…besides pain, something most of us will feel very quickly after such an experience is anger….I mean, someone just crossed a line…and that line was about 3 feet before the hand hit your face.  Your safety was taken from you.  Your peace was taken from you.  Your homeostasis was robbed.  All of this is boundary-crossing language. 

Something that should not have happened…did happen.  Grief can be a part of this experience as well. 

Some further examples can be like when you are cut off while driving, someone standing you up for an appointment (disrespecting your schedule), or something as “small” as someone taking the piece of pie you were saving out of the fridge.  ( I was going to eat that…)

Maybe it’s something like someone challenging a boundary you just set. 

“I do not schedule things on Sundays.  That is set aside for my immediate family.”

“Oh…well we are scheduling an office meeting Sunday at noon.  See you there.”

“Grrrrrr!”

All of these feelings make sense.  But, the problem is when we react out of that anger and do something unloving and hurtful.  It adds to the chaos you are already experiencing.  It pulls the pin of the grenade in our own hand.  It ends up hurting us and those we are interacting with if we are not careful. 

Anger is a power-up emotion and it helps us defend ourselves and motivates us to change our circumstances especially if we are being taken advantage of.  (THAT IS A GOOD THING!)  However, causing harm with a cross word or with harmful actions lowers us to the level of, at best, careless or, much worse, abusers. 

You don’t want that.

Keep the pin in the grenade…you can deal with the mouse using a trap instead of launching an explosive. 

Makes that “opportunity for the devil” line in the scripture above make more sense...

Poison 2:  Fear

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”  Proverbs 29:25 ESV

“What will they think about me if I don’t do what they want me to do?”  “What will my mother-in-law do if I tell her I do not want to go to her house on Christmas day this year?”  “What if I tell my co-worker that I can’t help them on their project cause of my own workload?” 

“What if they don’t like me?”

“They might reject me…”

We all have expectations we want to live up to and responsibilities to uphold.  I am not against taking care of business.  It’s when we do all of those things out of fear instead of our own choice.  Now we are letting anxiety dictate our life.  It’s not fulfilling.  It’s not out of the joy of helping others or goodwill. It’s because we want to make sure people still like us. 

Let me ask you this:  If you have a loved one come up to you and give you a gift like a dinner to your favorite place to eat, would it make you feel loved if they ended up telling you “I only did this because I was afraid that you would murder me and bury my body in your back yard.  PLEASE, DON’T KILL ME!” 

You would be shocked! 

Here is another way to put it.  “I only did this for you to keep you happy because I do not trust our relationship enough to tolerate any perceived negative feelings.   I feel like I have to keep you happy or you will reject me.  I am not doing this because I care about you and wanted to bless you…Enjoy your dinner.”

I think enjoying your dinner would be the exact opposite of what would happen…

Unless you are a sociopath…

Your mileage may vary…

This is, in effect, how we treat others when we do things out of anxiety.  It’s not because you want to bless someone…Unknowingly, it’s actually a self-protective motive.  It says, “I am more interested in my own safety from perceived potential rejection than I am in being honest with you.”  And when we slow down to look at it…yeeesh.  This is not living freely and honestly with those we love.

Or with ourselves… 

Now I understand the fear of rejection.  I understand that we all fall into this trap from time to time.   There is no judgment here!  I see it every day…in the mirror.  I weigh options all of the time and see that fear of rejection staring right back in my face.  My own fear of rejection kept me from making many good choices for my family and myself and I had to repent for it.   How often do we ignore doing the healthy thing because we are afraid of what others will think of us. 

I want to make a quick distinction between a reaction fear and a thought out caving into fear.  If you see someone running at you holding a machete like they are ready to take off your head…FEAR WOULD TOTALLY BE AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE. 

Or if you are in a situation or relationship with a history of abuse, having fear makes sense and you should not feel bad for having that emotion or for reacting in a way that is meant to keep you safe.  Your system is designed to do that.    It’s when we deliberate and deliberate and deliberate while we KNOW what boundary we should hold, decision we should make, or thing we know we ought to do and yet, don’t do it. 

My own unwillingness to take healthy steps out of fear showed me that I did not trust God with my life.  I think this is what Paul was talking about in Romans 14 when he says “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”  He is saying that if we know it’s not the thing we ought to do…and yet do it anyway we are sabotaging ourselves. 

Fear can be an indicator of a bigger trust problem…either with our own ability to manage conflict, trusting other’s to have honest relationship with us, or trusting God to take care of us. 

My invitation to you is to slow down and ask yourself…or even, if you are so inclined, to ask God,

“What steps can I take to trust you here so I can make the healthy decision I know I need to make?” 

You may be surprised at what you can do when you challenge your fears. 

Poison 3:  Guilt

Now I could have just said that guilt is like “Fear section B.”  Guilt is its own flavor of fear and I felt it deserved its own section. 

“I feel bad if I tell them I do not want to house sit for them.” 

“I feel guilty for budgeting for some of my needs instead of my family’s wants/needs.”

“Telling them that they hurt me makes me feel bad…” 

Guilt is a specific fear of being unworthy.  It is so sneaky in its ways of keeping us from holding boundaries or doing things we ought to do for our own good or the good of your family.  It guises itself has moral conviction…. but it’s that bugger, fear, again.  

“Well…I don’t want to hurt them!”

Of course you don’t!  You want to love people.  (At least most of you do ha ha ha!)  But sometimes we are so set on NOT doing something bad that we then NEGLECT doing something GOOD.  It is GOOD to set boundaries with people in our life.  It is GOOD to take care of ourselves.  It is GOOD to tell someone the truth when you do not want to do something they want to do.  

Now I am not saying that you should not prefer other people.  You should!  That is good too!  But serving and preferring others should not be something that is to our own unhealthy detriment. 

It’s like the lady who ate the peanut butter sandwich her daughter made for her when she has a severe nut allergy.  “Well, she seemed so excited to give me something she painstakingly made, I did not have the heart to tell her no…”

Now she says all of this from the emergency room hospital bed…

We do this with many of our own relationships and if we are not aware of it and practice wisdom, guilt can send us to the metaphorical hospital as well.

Many times, guilt pressures us to violate our own conscience.   “If I tell my mother-in-law that I do not like the sweater she knit for me I will feel so guilty…So I just tell her I love it…I lie to her.  Or I make up an excuse as to why I am not wearing it during our Thanksgiving get-together…which is also a lie…I guess.”

“It’s only a little white lie…”

 Nah…it’s just a straight up lie.  We do this all the time with more significant things than sweaters.  It does not breed trust…and it sets a trap for you to have a bigger problem with a bigger crash.

I always say I would rather kick the clown out of the show now rather than later when he is on stilts. Getting down from stilts is more complicated and always more painful…

Stupid clowns…

Conclusion:

Now, I could talk a lot about these different poison pills.  Whole books have been written about them.  We must be aware of them.  I am not saying that you cannot make the same decisions you would make out of these motivating emotions…sometimes those decisions can be wise.

(Like not eating peanut butter when you have a nut allergy…you should listen to that fear!) 

However, making them the driving factor without practicing wisdom and evaluating what is right…is, in all honesty, foolish. 

If I were to boil down this blog to a small phrase it would be “consider your decisions with wisdom”.  Don’t make decisions out of anger, fear, or guilt.  Do things because it’s the right thing.  Do things because you WANT to bless someone.  Do things out of joy, love, and grace. 

 This way you can stay out of silly situations that so many people find themselves caught up in…like our silly court jester above.  Also, just as a friendly suggestion…don’t pretend to be something you are not…it never goes well in the long run. 

…And stay away from clowns…they are creepy.

Now, go watch The Court Jester and tell me what you think. 

- Ferg