Are you surrounded by stupid, ugly, hateful people? Do you need some tips on how to deal with them. Keep reading. This article is for you!
I hate to break it to you, but if you read this headline and thought, “Yes! I need those tips!” your number one problem is your thinking. If you are thinking that everyone else is the problem, and you’re labeling them things like stupid, ugly, and hateful, you’re definitely making your life a lot harder than it needs to be.
Why? First, because you’re blaming. Blaming makes it someone else’s fault and someone else’s problem to fix. This makes YOU powerless. That’s not a great place to be. If I had a choice of whether to take responsibility for an issue and know that it will be cleared up or wait for someone else to do it, I am going to take the first option every time. Why? Because I don’t want to cross my fingers and rely on someone else to do what I can do for myself.
Second, labeling people puts them in a box that can be hard to get out of. If you call someone lazy or dumb, it’s hard for you to see them as something else. If they know you think of them in this way, they tend to give you what you expect. This creates separation between you.
For example, in a famous experiment, third grade school teacher Jane Elliott told students that blued eyed kids were superior to brown eyed ones. She gave privileges to the blue eyed ones, sat them in the front of the class, and told them to ignore the brown eyed kids. The blue eyed kids quickly became more arrogant and bossy, but also began to outperform the brown eyed ones. The brown eyed children became more timid and their performance decreased. When the teacher told them that she’d made a mistake, it was the brown eyed kids who were superior, the trend reversed.
The moral of the story? Think positive things of other people and watch them deliver it. How do you do that when you think they are just awful? Here are some tips.
Gain Perspective
While things may seem important when you are tweaked, if you take a step back and really look at them, they often are not. Ask yourself if this will matter a day, week, month, or year from now. If it won’t, let it go. It’s already taken up too much of your life. After all, what harm does getting cut off in traffic really do? Does someone else’s words or dress really hurt you? Are you really harmed by someone not believing the same thing you do? Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.
Practice Being Nonjudgmental
The things that offend us always come from our interpretation of the deed. If we remain in a place of being nonjudgmental, we can never be offended because things just are as they are. They don’t mean anything. When someone “forgets” to call us back, it’s just one of those things. If we don’t get acknowledged for sending a generous gift, it’s just that. Nothing more. So, there is nothing to get upset about.
Forget About Being Right
Now let’s say that you believe you are right about your judgments and feel justified in your feelings about being wronged. Okay. Perhaps that’s true. But so what? Is it worth your peace of mind? There is a saying, “Would you rather be happy or would you rather be right?” Sometimes being right isn’t particularly effective because it leaves you feeling isolated, unhappy, victimized, and downtrodden. Is that a fair trade? If this were me, I’d rather be naive and happy. Life’s too short to be unhappy, but it’s your choice.
Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes
We all have our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors because of the life we’ve lived. How might you feel if you were in the “offender’s” shoes? Might you have the same thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? How, then, would you expect them to be any different? You may see that what you thought was so horrible wasn’t intentionally offensive at all. It’s just a reflection of where they are in this moment. Haven’t you been less mature, capable, or sensitive than you are right now?
Assume Positive Intent
When someone is careless, it’s easy to feel that their actions were deliberate. What if you assumed that all actions came from a positive place? Can you see how that might influence the way you felt about them? If someone bought you the totally wrong birthday present, but they meant well, would you be upset? If someone ended up costing you money or time by trying to do you a favor, would that matter? Whether the other person actually did have a positive intention or not, it helps you to believe so because it keeps your heart happy. So why not give them the benefit of the doubt?
Realize That Life Is Not About You
When life is all about you, then everything that happens is a reflection of you. Since about half of everything that happens could be negative, that’s a lot of defending to do to make yourself look good. That’s a lot of work. When you give up the idea that it’s all about you, you can relax and let what happen happen without having to be defensive or offended. Focus on what really is about you and let the rest go. The world doesn’t have to revolve around you for you to play an important part in it.
Be Forgiving
You know what? Stuff happens. Be forgiving. Nobody is perfect. You aren’t either. If someone makes a mistake and offends you, forgive before they even have a chance to apologize. It’s for your benefit. When you hold on to anger, it poisons you, not anyone else. When you have a forgiving nature, it becomes easier for you to dare, love yourself, and be yourself. Forgiveness is a great gift for everyone.
When you master just a few of these skills, you will feel more peaceful within yourself. You will start to see people as shiny, happy people instead of stupid, ugly, hateful people. This will make your whole outlook a lot brighter. Try it.