What we all desire to see in life is positivity and goodwill, to get our fair shakes in whatever we do. But we know that it’s such a demanding task to not get perturbed by the instances where other people’s attitudes, intentions and situations don’t go parallelly with ours. Most of us don’t have the patience to consider things from the other person’s side, but that is what we should try to master for the sake of our own composure.
Equanimity
This is such a deft equanimity we can strive to reach, to avoid getting tangled in unnecessary confusions, perplexities and misunderstandings. Because sometimes we actually struggle with thoughts formed in our minds that don’t relate to any proper root or reason. When you enter a room full of people and suddenly if you hear a laughter as you take a seat, it disturbs you. You start panicking whether the people around you just noticed something awkward in your outfit, your makeup, your hair or just in the way you walked in. How many of us are smart enough to not feel uneasy or freaked-out in a situation like that?
To not take it personally, recall a situation where you were just astonished about how someone could criticise your work after you have done a great deal. Sometimes it’s just that people can’t see the majority of good but the little negativity. We are enthusiastic about magnifying whatever the percent of negativity we have though we know that we wish positivity from within. Sometimes, people direct their responses owing to what is revolving around them from time to time.
Whatever that turns out to be unwelcoming and downgrading, only a little percent of them has something to do with us. The rest is just the diverse situations people belong to and deal with trying to face their personal circumstances. To figure out this simple thing in life, there are two strategies.
The first is developing yourself to the point where you don’t lower yourself down when someone behaves according to their situation. For example, when you show a friend a song that really captured you, if he or she focuses on his/her phone or some other work, or if your friend walks away, you will question yourself if you mean anything to your friend or not. But the real reason perhaps can be a different one.
Stigma
Your friend could be focusing on his/her phone because he/she just received an important message, or the message that person has been waiting for. He/she may have walked away because that person was in a bad mood so he/she is unable to enjoy the song you showed. If we can at least try to figure out what sort of intention the other person is having, that would be favourable for everyone. As long as we make efforts to concentrate on ourselves, we’ll notice stigma prevailing around us all the time.
If we understand the intentions of other people and their situations, but still we feel disturbed and offended, that means the first strategy doesn’t work with all the contexts equally. There you have the second strategy.
You can open up and let the other person know that you’re hurt for nothing, but the reaction or the response you received. It can also convince you why the other person was up to something in the middle of their conversation with you. It saves everyone’s feelings.
If everyone put this in practice, it would just enrich our personal and social relationships.