Getting Along With Others

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Sibling-RivalryI have lived long enough to realize we cannot get along with everyone.  Not even members of our own family.  Do you exhaust yourself trying to get along with everyone? Let’s dig into this topic a little further.

Everyone knows someone who makes us feel stressed out.  You know those people who you dread seeing, don’t you?  Maybe they’re a co-worker, or maybe they’re a brother or sister.  Some people have the talent to make us feel like someone is scratching their nails on a chalkboard when you’re around them.  They’re just not fun to be around.  You know who I’m talking about…

A more difficult situation is when you have a personality conflict with someone you live with, as that is harder to avoid.  Work only lasts a period of time, and then you leave it.  Not to say that the time is pleasant while you are there.  But, living with someone creates an environment harder to escape.  Perhaps you don’t get along well with your spouse, parent, or sibling.  Or, in today’s society, in a living arrangement entered due to financial necessity.  Worse yet is entering into an emotionally unhealthy living situation that you don’t know is unhealthy until you are living it and it’s too late.  That can cause untold stress and feelings of being trapped.

It’s time to realize that, in the conflict, it is not you, it is them.  Not that we, ourselves, don’t contribute to the toxic situation.  Many times we find ourselves with the “I’ll show them” attitude, too.  Or maybe we do the opposite and become silent and withdrawn.  It’s important to realize that we do not have the power to make everyone conform to the way we want them to behave, and that we cannot make everyone treat us the way we’d like to be treated.

The most important thing I can convey is that we have to do the best we can not to let them inside our heads.  Even though it’s not the easiest thing in the world, we have to ignore them.  If they tell us things about ourselves we know that are not true, we cannot believe them.  We cannot believe we are not good enough, that we won’t amount to anything, that we are not beautiful, or that we are not amazing.  I know that we get tired, but we have to always be on guard and maintain a little power, internally, to fight back.  I’m not speaking about fighting back physically.  But that we keep that little voice inside our head on OUR side, with positive thoughts about us.  Remember that we, ourselves, are the most important people in the world. 

We are all so fragile.  I know.  I’ve been there, myself.  We sometimes let a person make us believe something about ourselves that robs us of our ability to move forward, to be all that we can be, to enjoy our life.  It can even be a comment in passing that we take as truth in a moment of weakness.  One simple word or statement can stay with us for days, or even years.

Life is short, and even one day feeling badly about ourselves is too long.  Heck, one hour, or even one minute, is too long.

When someone makes us feel badly we have to realize it’s not us.  It’s them.  Maybe they have the problem that they’re trying to make someone else feel badly so they can feel better about themselves.

Not to say that we are perfect beings.  I don’t believe anyone is perfect.  We’re all learning and growing everyday; however, we do need to realize that we are doing the best we can at the moment.  And, perhaps, so are they.  Maybe they have a lot of stuff going on, maybe stuff we don’t even know about.  Sometimes it’s much easier “getting on” someone and taking things out on someone else.  We just have to realize and evaluate the situation and to look inside ourselves.  Maybe it’s time to make OUR “stuff” change, too.  It’s truly time to enjoy life.  If not now, when?

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Visit www.TimetoPlay.com.  Time to Play.  It’s a State of Mind.

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