I heard a dharma teacher speak those title words on a podcast this morning. A related Buddhist phrase is “Pain is inevitable; suffering is a choice.” In my spiritual practice, I think about this idea often. It is, roughly speaking, that bad things happen to us all the time and we can never protect ourselves against all of these bad things (not even most of them); however, how we react to the bad things in our lives is directly related to the suffering we feel.
I also think about this idea often in my other practice, my legal one. What does this have to do with the law and, more importantly, your business? Lots!
For example, when you find an infringement of your copyrights, like your art on someone else’s website, that is painful. The infringer has violated your rights and it seems perfectly reasonable for you to feel angry and upset. Instead, as an attorney, I counsel quiet acceptance of the way things are. This isn’t flakiness, it’s wise legally. I mean, you can’t control the infringer’s behavior and the infringement has happened already: no matter how angry or hurt you get, you won’t change those facts. But if you get angry and strike out, you’ll definitely feel worse, not better. So, take a breath and, gather your thoughts… and your emotions.
If you strike out at the infringer in anger (even righteous anger), that will make things worse. You might send an email that amounts to legal threats/extortion, or publicly shame someone and later find out you had the wrong “bad guy,” or lose a client because you embarrassed it. But even if none of that bad stuff happens, attacking like that will not make the infringement go away or get you made whole. Instead, you’ll just suffer more because you’ve behaved badly and you haven’t made the pain go away or changed the reality of the infringement.
Playing the victim won’t help either. It won’t make the infringement stop, it won’t punish the infringer in any way, and it won’t get you paid (if that’s what you want). You’ll just feel worse. There is your suffering, brought on by your own choices.
Now, “quiet acceptance of the way things are” doesn’t mean “do nothing.” Instead, after you take that breath and gather your thoughts, gather evidence. Here’s a post I wrote on that. Even if you decide to do nothing now (one option), you’ll have the evidence if you change your mind (you have three years from when you discovered the infringement, usually, to file suit). After you get the evidence, think about what will make you feel better, feel whole now. Then, take the calm and rational steps to make that happen, like hire a lawyer to get you money, ask the infringer for a credit line and payment yourself, filing a DMCA Takedown, whatever.
As for protection, you can’t stop determined infringers. You can let go of feeling guilty, like it’s your fault they infringed–it’s not– and feeling guilty is choosing to suffer. However, you can make it easier to get satisfaction after they do their bad deeds if you take the right steps like using watermarks (especially in the form of proper copyright notices), registering your copyrights, using good metadata in your files, and getting good evidence.
Things like infringement are going to happen to you. When they do, there is no reason for you to suffer.