TheMethod2MyMadness

I’m currently pondering the answer to a very difficult question i’ve been asking myself throughout the past few days. What is the proper course of action for dealing with people that you just don’t like? No matter how many times I catch myself saying “I hate her/him so much,” I like to think that I don’t really hate someone. As a matter of fact, no matter how much I don’t get along with a person, I don’t think it’s ever okay to wish them ill will at all. I mean, I might get caught up in the heat of the moment and hope they feel just sooo terrible…but that right there would be the extent to my hexing. I think it’s because I make as many mistakes as the next person does, so to imagine it being okay for someone else to wish me ill will is a pretty difficult concept to be okay with. If someone were to hate me, which I definitely shouldn’t rule out, I would hope they are pretty civil about it.

So far, my actions toward people currently in my naughty list have been vague at most. I think my repertoire for revealing disdain is a pretty short list. I try every now and then not to initiate conversation that might be interpreted as friendly. Perhaps i’ll even throw around the occasional cold shoulder to spruce things up. And yes, I might even go so far as to lose control of my emotions and just have every word spoken seethe with bitterness and anger. But really, what’s the point? I can’t help but think at the core of all these actions are immaturity and a lack of respect for the other person. No matter how much a person might disrespect or hurt me, I imagine them being different but the same. They might have different values, opinions, and ideas, but I believe we all have a common meaning to life, which is to make life meaningful.

We’re all searching for something that can make us happy. So it’s definitely more than a challenging task to even consider the condition of other people’s feelings. It’s hard because we were born selfish. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think malicious intentions are inherent, but we definitely have our self-interests at heart. Why would anyone live life trying to stay miserable? We live trying to be happy! We just have different ideas about what makes us happy. I suppose that the best course of action then, would be to live and let live. Wouldn’t it? You are your own person, as I am mine. Should we just agree to disagree and be on with it? But alas, life isn’t so forgiving as to allow something so sensible, be an easy thing to do.

When you’ve been living your whole life with one way of thinking, how could it ever be easy to understand another? How could you ever come to the conclusion that another way is correct when you’ve been living 20 years like everything else is wrong? Not definitively wrong mind you, but wrong enough that you have yet to approach it as an acceptable way of thinking, of behaving, of living. Yes, there are avenues of communication we could take. We could logically follow a path of knowledge to reach a common and supposedly correct conclusion, but that’s not always the case. There’s not always an obvious solution, there’s not always a single correct answer that is reached, there’s not always room for logic in a game of emotions. 

So what is the correct course of action for dealing with people that you don’t like? Four paragraphs of deliberation and I still haven’t come to an answer. But if I were to take my best guess, I’d think it would be nothing. There’s no room in life for acting different towards different people. Yes, there are those that will cause you pain and suffering. But if they offer you nothing else in return to justify the hurt, then I suppose the answer is clearer than the one for other situations. If there was one sentence that I have to live by, it’d be this:

Love living your life.  Life is too short to get caught up on trivial differences, to dwell on petty matters, to focus on anything else other than how to live life better. If you’re not loving how you’re living, then change what you’re doing until you do. There’s a life for everyone. You might not have it now, but life is just long enough for everyone to taste what it has to offer. So go out there and taste it…you walking taste bud, you!