Getting Along

Get up in the morning. Greet the day. Muddle through personal duties, then to the kitchen to make coffee and crank up the computer. Kick start the brain and get the day underway.

Assess what’s on the schedule for the day and make sure each item is prepared. Determine time free to do other things and tick off the options available.

Then…jump in with both feet.

During the coming hours interaction with countless people will happen. Each one a joy and reward, some not so positive. While we help others some defy help. Their attitude seems to prevent it.

Barriers to feeling good about somebody. You know when you greet them that part of the interpersonal transaction is hitting a dead spot, a thud in the day’s rhythm.  And it dawns on me that I will need to decide how to handle the situation.

If the initial steps to bridge the gap – for certainly a gap exists, we just don’t know why or how big – I calculate other options to find a basis to move forward with the person.  Some are not able at the moment to do so. The person defies understanding or sharing to help us find a positive way forward.

In such cases I withdraw. Do you? I await a better time to offer assistance. Sometimes that will come too late, or too early, or at just the right time. It is not knowable in advance. We plod our way through these situations.

I’m reminded of a quote I saw the other day. Here it is. Perhaps it will aid our understanding?

 “Avoid negative people, for they are the greatest destroyers of self confidence and self esteem.  Surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you.”

                                    ~Author Unknown

Step away from the situation. If I press to do something for the individual and they are not ready to receive such help, I may make matters worse. Plus, I may end up being pulled down into their dreary circumstance.  Not a good thing. Stay positive. Step away.

Having made this step, another is probable: seek advice from others on the situation. Do so carefully, however! Seeking advice helps me see that my read on the situation is reasonable and appropriate. Do not talk of the other individual’s problem beyond assessing appropriate handling. To go farther amounts to gossip and not much good comes from that. Ever.

And apt quote on this is:

“A lot of problems in the world would disappear if we talk to each other instead of about each other.” ~Anonymous

It is easy to gossip about others. Much better if we talk directly to each other when the time is right. Discerning that will be difficult and never fully known in advance. But we try or else we become the gossip!

George Takei of Star Trek fame seems to have great words of wisdom to share, like this one:

“Each of us bears a responsibility to reject hate, whatever its form, whatever its justification.

A soul filled with hate can devastate a community. A nation filled with hate can devastate a people.

           It must start and end with each of us.”

‘Whatever form it takes’ is a key phrase. Hate may take the form of gossip, of feeling superior to another person, or simply the bald form of repudiation of the other person on whatever basis. Slim versus overweight, straight versus gay, poor versus rich, church goer versus the unchurched.  Prejudice is sneaky. Hate is as well. Take the high road and be free of this trip point.

Getting along. It requires managing our relationships – major or minor, personal or occupational, family or non – so we can maintain equilibrium. Positive attitudes. Giving and receiving.

Here’s another anonymous quote found on the internet the other day:

“A true friend doesn't care when you’re broke, being a bitch, what you weigh, if your house is a mess, what you drive, about your past, or if your family is filled with crazy people.

           They love you for who you are.”

It would help if I love who I am as well! Might this be the first step in ‘getting along’?

September 26, 2013