“Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.” Dale Carnegie
We can say that our daily lives basically have two parts. Our work or school life and our private life. I am one of those who believe that learning to separate these two parts of life with sharp lines is important in order to maintain our balance of life. A grumpy boss, a bully classmate, an annoying client, or a disrespectful driver are all hard human characters that we can encounter from time to time in our daily lives. We all use different methods to deal with tough people. I will mention this topic in another article. The main issue of this article is, do we bring the emotional effects of unpleasant situations caused by these difficult people to our homes?
I’m sure that most of us might have different stories with tough people. You may be pacified by a repressive supervisor at work or you may feel nervous about things you don’t agree with your neighbors, or you may be angry about the disrespect attitude you faced on a bus, on a ferry or taxi. Most of us experience this kind of experiences. Sam Horn, who is experienced in effective communication in difficult situations, advises us to ask ourselves whether the situation we are in is negligible. If the issue is not important, the best choice is not to take into consideration (You can reach my previous post about Tongue Fu from the link). If you think that the current situation is a problem that needs to be resolved, you need to be calm to solve it first. It might be a good strategy not to reveal your reaction until you decide how you respond properly. At the same time, do not let the present situation affect other events in your life. Try to let it happen for a while instead of being stuck in the current event. Otherwise, people or subjects that you have difficulties to cope with will wander with you in your whole life. You carry your business troubles home and when you do that, you start being unhappy in your private life. I don’t mean to ignore any problems here or throw them inside of us. There will be some tyrants, negative people or events that make our lives difficult in different areas of our lives. The important thing is to avoid problems and seek a solution. If you have the opportunity to get rid of people and situations that negatively affect your life, you are lucky, that’s great. If you do not have such an opportunity-which, unfortunately, is not in many cases.- don’t let yourself get caught up by this negativeness.
For potential bullies that you may be working within your workplace, “tongue fu” says: “Stop the bullies instead of feeling sorry for yourself and subjugating them”. Stepping back often encourages the bullies. The most effective way against them is to know how to say “enough” at the right place, at the right time. Show them your courage by saying “I respect your ideas and expect you to treat me with respect”. In addition, to protect your own health, do not worry about people with negative and bad attitudes too much. These people are everywhere, in traffic, in theaters, at work, in the market, etc. Ask yourself if it is worth it to feel angry or sad and reflecting your situation to those who love you! Is it worth it to feel angry or sad instead of having fun when you are at home? Above all, we are responsible for our reaction to other people behaviors and we can make a difference with it. Remember, if there’s anything more special than being nice to a person who treats us well; it’s to be nice and well behaved to a person who has a bad attitude.
K.