Let's face it, sometimes it can be exceedingly difficult to stay positive--especially if you are around people who make it difficult. One thing you can do is to just stay away from them, but that isn't always an option. There are a few people in my life who put quite the strain on me sometimes, but I can't exactly escape them.
What do you do in this instance? Try to look at things in a different light! I'm still practicing this, but it helps more than you would expect. Changing your perspective can make it easier to deal with unpleasant or annoying people around you.
I'm going to illustrate this with two examples from my life:
The first person is one of my managers at work. About half of my shifts I have to work with him, and because of my job duties I am stuck constantly in close proximity to him and I am forced to rely on him to do certain things for me because of company policies. In the past, he has shown to be a bit of a misogynist (though he won't admit it), completely opposite of me in both religious and political leanings (therefore we have completely different ideas on how people should be treated), an egoist, and he likes to put down other people. He often ridicules the other managers, makes fun of the employees he is in charge of (many of which are teenagers), and is pretty much just a jerk a lot of the time. He is unreliable, doesn't pay attention to anything but his cell phone, and has a sense of humor that I just don't agree with.
As you can imagine, it is difficult for a happiness-focused person such as myself to be around him.
In order to get through the shifts with him, I have to utilize a few techniques to change my perspective. The first and most important is that I keep conversation light and happy. If he begins to talk about something I don't approve of, I ignore him. After a certain point, he gets the point and walks away, and later we resume conversation. Occasionally I will interject a comment to show that I disagree with him, but still keep the peace (some people really need the help/ he's home schooled, give him a break/ not everyone thinks that way) and move on. If things get to be more than that technique can diffuse, I remember something another manager once told me: "Can you image how hard it must be to be him?". This usually helps me to be more compassionate. I think about how he must have been raised to believe as he does, and to be so unrepentantly sure of his rightness. I think about how every other sentence he talks about his long distance girlfriend and how he's going to move as soon as he can find a job in her state. Yes, it must be hard to be him. I don't have to like him, but I can tolerate him. The last technique is only if the situation is becoming dire, because I pride myself on never losing my temper. That one is: just walk away. If my job duties allow me to, if I'm not in the middle of something important, I can always excuse myself and walk away. I go to the bathroom, walk around the store, talk to some other employees, and cheer up. With any luck, he will go off and actually do some work, and then I can return to what I was doing.
The second case is very different. The second person is actually my fiance's sister, who as I believe I have mentioned before, lives with us. I am naturally an introvert, I like things to be quiet and I like to stay at home. She on the other hand, is the most extroverted person I have ever seen. She must always be talking or doing something. If she's watching a show with her headphones in, she still laughs and makes comments on what she is watching. I've asked her several times and she says she isn't even aware of doing it, so there isn't really a chance of her stopping. Her laughing and talking is terribly distracting, both to myself and my fiance`, and keeps us from doing homework, reading, or writing because we cannot concentrate. Annoyingness aside, she also rarely cleans anything in the house except her own laundry, which includes cleaning up after her own dishes. She acts more like she is our child than a roommate who is supposed to be doing equal shares of everything. Again, frustrating. If Nik or myself are doing something other than just sitting around reading or playing a game, she asks us why. If I am cleaning, she asks why. If Nik is trying to work out, she asks why. If I am awake early in the day, she asks why I did not go back to sleep. These things are not simple questions in my view, because the tone she asks them in seems accusatory to me.
This case is very different than my manager because I love her to death. Sometimes, however, she is just a bit much to handle!
What do I do about it without hurting her feelings? The first thing I do is try to plan not to do anything that requires concentration while she is home/awake. I do what I need to do early or while she is at work.
Unfortunately she requested that her work schedule be virtually identical to Nik's (they work together), so he cannot utilize this technique. Instead, he and I also just try to do other things that we all enjoy. If she and I are alone in the house, I offer for us to watch a movie together or go to the thrift store. If Nik and she are together at home, he asks her to help him cook dinner, or they go play basketball together. When I get frustrated at her not helping around the house, sometimes I ask her to do something small (pick up the dishes in the lounge). This makes me feel better and perhaps her as well. Another technique I use is similar to the manager case. I think about what it is like to be her. She has been coddled her entire life, never really required to do much housework. She is moving in a month to live with a friend, and she doesn't know how to pay bills or many of the other things that we take care of. It must be scary for her because she is a waitress and works for tips, and she will not longer have the safety net of us willing to pay more than our shares to make sure things work out. She is unobservant and probably doesn't even notice when the floor needs vacuuming or the dishes start to pile up (so long as they aren't in her way). She, like myself, doesn't like to get dirty and isn't really willing to take out the garbage on her own. These are all things that add up to make someone who needs to be taken care of. So while she can be annoying, if I think about all of these things it makes it a lot easier to understand her and deal with her. If nothing else, I also think: "She'll be moving in just a month!"
These two examples are on two different ends of the spectrum, and hopefully helped to convey my point. If anyone finds these useful or would like to share their own tips, please comment below!
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