by Jamesscotthenson | Dec 16, 2016 | Blog
I am extending this by an extra day thanks to a couple of
good suggestions, and a desire to end it on a positive note. So we’ll wrap it
up tomorrow.
Maybe.
I actually really like people.
I honesty like everyone I meet, whether I want to or not.
It’s a curse.
I also really trust people.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, for every person who
has done something shady to me, thousands and thousands have not. I constantly
give people the opportunity to screw me over, and they don’t.
People tend to show up when they are supposed to show up and
do the things they are supposed to do to fit into society and be a decent
human. We all know people who don’t do these things, but we tend to remember
them because they are the exception. We forget just how many people we see
every day who take care of their shit.
People are generally trustworthy.
I know what you’re saying though:
“What about the people we talked about yesterday? You just
wrote an article about toxic people and booting them from your life, so you
obviously know they exist.”
You’re right, I did write that and I definitely know they
exist.
But I also think you can trust toxic people more that you
can trust anyone else.
They are very consistent in their behavior and their actions
are predictable.
Think about it.
If you know someone always thinks the other person is wrong
in a disagreement, you can trust them to do the same with you when you
disagree.
If you know someone starts trouble to make themselves feel
better, you can trust them to do just that if you tell them about an issue you
are having with someone else.
If you know someone is lazy, you trust them to be lazy.
If you know someone has no insight, you can trust they will
behave as they have always behaved.
It is absurd to have this hope that someone is suddenly
going to change and then get mad when they don’t. Adjust your expectations to
fit what you know of them, and make your decision based on that rather than
some hopeful nonsense.
If you know you can trust someone to respond selfishly,
don’t share something personal with them and expect yourself to be happy or
satisfied with the results.
If you know you can trust someone to blame others when
things go wrong, don’t work with them on something unless you are ready to
shoulder the blame.
Complainers will complain.
Blamers will blame.
Manipulators will manipulate.
Why are we surprised by this?
So, yes, you can trust people. You can trust them to act
according to their nature.
Work from this and you will rarely get betrayed or be
harmed. Don’t get mad at them, remember that they are doing the best they can
with what they have.
Personally, I would also encourage you to reach out to
untrustworthy people and give them a chance.
Most of the time they will do exactly what you expect them
to do.
But sometimes they will surprise you, and that is an
incredible opportunity for something cool.
by Jamesscotthenson | Dec 15, 2016 | Blog
I love the Wikihow pictures, especially on bizarre subjects.
What do we do about the toxic people in our world?
You know the words that go along with them.
Complaining.
Self-absorbed.
Drama creating.
Lazy.
No insight.
Cruel.
Manipulative.
And it goes on and on and on.
What do you do about people like this?
In many ways, this depends on who they are and what role
they play in our life.
If they are an acquaintance or casual friend, you can simply
choose if you want them around or not. No matter what anyone says, we are
allowed to break up with our friends.
If the person carries a little more weight in your life (a
spouse or family member) or you don’t have a lot of choice about them being
there (a boss or co-worker), things are a little more complicated.
So what do we do?
There are a few different things, depending on the
relationship you have.
Choose your reaction to their behavior. It is always helpful
to remember that people behave this way because they are suffering. Babies
scream and cry and lash out when they are in pain, many adults never find a
more constructive way to meet their needs. Remembering that they are suffering
is always important.
Complainers often feel like they have no control and seek to
alter things through complaining, drama creators feel insecure so they cause
trouble between you and other people so that the two of you can team up.
Laziness is often depression related, but it can also be an expression of
powerlessness of something they saw modeled growing up. Cruel and manipulative
people are seeking to get their needs met in very unhealthy and unskillful
ways. Those who tend toward self-absorption and a lack of insight were often
not raised to have these things and, due to the very nature of self-absorption
and no insight, probably don’t even know they are there.
Confront them, kindly and with compassion. Without hurt or
anger. Tell them how their behavior affects you. If this is a person who cares
and deserves to be in your life, this should at least be able to be a
conversation. If it cannot, you have to decide if they are someone that gets to
keep a spot in your life. If they are, accept these things about them and move
on. If they are a part of your work environment, then it may be time to look
for a new job.
Draw boundaries. Not everyone has access to all parts of our
life. This doesn’t change because they are family.
No matter what, keep a focus on the fact that you are
choosing to have these people in your life. Not as a way of blaming yourself or
assigning responsibility, but because there is a great deal of power in
acknowledging our ability to choose.
No one gets a free pass to stay in our life. Who we spend
our time with determines who we are. Our time is all we have. Could you be
investing it more wisely?
We’ll wrap this little series on other people up tomorrow,
thank you for reading. I am really grateful for everyone who takes the time to
look at these blogs every day, and I am always open to suggestions for how they
can be better.
Take care.
by Jamesscotthenson | Dec 14, 2016 | Blog
As we have looked at for the last two days, so many of our
problems and difficulties stem, not from other people, but from our desire to
control them.
To make them do what we want.
To force them into our agendas and plans.
So how we can we deal with others mindfully?
The same way we deal with anything mindfully: by being aware
of the difference between the situation, and our judgment or assessment of the
situation.
You want to see Mad Max but the other person wants to see
Creed.
I don’t go to the movies a lot, shut up.
Is it really a matter of them being unreasonable and
selfish, or simply wanting to see something different? Is it all that important
that you get to see your movie?
This is a really good opportunity to explore the emotions
and thoughts you have related to the situation rather than judging their
behavior.
Are you tying this to previous behavior you have seen from
them, so it is about more than this one movie?
Is this really about feeling like you never get your way?
Are you just unable to accept not getting your way?
Do you experience anxiety when you aren’t in control?
What does anxiety drive you to do?
None of these things are necessarily good or bad. Neither is
seeing Mad Max or Creed or Fantastic Beasts or whatever, they are just movies.
A few hours out of your life. You will waste 10 times that many hours on your
phone in the coming week.
Your partner wanting to see what they want to see is
neutral, and no different than you wanting to see what you want to see.
There is no morality or ethics here, it’s just two people
wanting what they want.
So, take a moment, address what is happening inside of you,
and accept that it is neutral. Accept that your partner wanting what they want
is neutral.
Let yourself sit with these thoughts and feelings, without
judgment, without reaction. Observe them, allowing them to be exactly as they
are.
Then shut up and let them pick the movie.
by Jamesscotthenson | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog
Look at me getting thematic.
I like to ask people to make a list of the things they can
control.
These are the most common answers I get.
My thoughts
My emotions
My kids
My life
My body
My pets
You’ll notice, even though none of the things on this list
are under our control, other people do not appear on it. Even when we are
listing things we think we can control (and getting it wrong) we don’t even
consider putting other people on the list.
Yet we let so much of our happiness rest on it.
We constantly outsource our emotional wellbeing to this
thing we know we cannot control.
We do this by:
Taking offense to what others say, think, or believe
Believing this offense means something
Wishing others would do something different
Seeking to manipulate or coerce others into doing what we
want
Thinking our unhappiness rests on what they do or do not do
Thinking our happiness rests on what they do or do not do
Thinking anything going on inside of us actually has
something to do with them
The fun part is that they are probably thinking the same
things about us.
We are stuck in this web of interactions where everyone is
blaming everyone else for how they feel, and then wondering why nothing is
getting better.
For some reason the primary narrative of the media and the
social sciences pushes the idea that others are responsible for our internal
emotional state too.
This isn’t helpful.
Something we’ve done before, and we’ll probably do again:
Today, whenever something related to another person makes
you unhappy, ask yourself what it might be like if you took responsibility for
your own emotional state.
There is the other person and their actions, and then there
is your reaction.
You only have control over one of these things.
And it isn’t them.
by Jamesscotthenson | Dec 12, 2016 | Blog
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people
I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous
and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I
have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized
that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood or
birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of
them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at
my relative, or hate him. We are born to work together like feet, hands and
eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is
unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are
obstructions.
Marcus Aurelius
Other people.
There is a reason Zen masters retreat to the mountains and
Sadhus retreat to caves and monks retreat to monasteries where no one is
allowed to talk.
Other. People.
Of all the things we have to learn to be at peace with in
life, other people pose the most serious difficulty.
They don’t listen, they complain, they get in the way of
what we are working on. They are selfish and stupid and arrogant and just have
to live their lives near us living ours.
There is a good chance they would even have the nerve to say
these exact same things about us.
Other people.
Look, there is no way around the fact that not everyone has
the same degree of self-awareness and insight and mindfulness in how they go
about their lives.
There is no way around the fact that many people out there
don’t really pay attention to the things they do, don’t take the time to be
introspective and see where they might improve and honestly do not care how
their actions might affect others.
There are three things to consider with this though.
One: Am I really as mindful and considerate and enlightened
as I think I am? While I like to think I am a little more self-aware than most,
even if this is true there is no way it is perfectly consistent. Maybe I should
clean up my own yard before bitching about my neighbors.
Two: People are not selfish and difficult without cause, and
their selfishness and difficulty harms them more than it does anyone else. It
is an opportunity to offer compassion if we can step outside our own wants and
desires and sheer annoyance for a second.
Three: If your emotional wellbeing is in the hands of
someone else, you are screwed. I don’t care who it is. You cannot outsource the
regulation of your internal state without creating severe unhappiness.
So, accept that you are going to encounter all sorts of
difficult people today, and every day.
Some will be strangers, some will be family, some will be
the people closest to you. Try to stay in your own business and offer
compassion instead of judgment. Don’t let someone else’s selfishness or
unhappiness push you into your own selfishness or unhappiness. They are the way
they are for a reason.
Same as you, same as me.
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