How to deal with difficult people

“You think 70,000 thoughts a day,  90% of them the same as the day before. You are stuck on loop repeating the same script over and over again. New thoughts are like a new trail in the forest – the more you walk it, the stronger it becomes. Old thoughts become automatic, repetitive, keeping you trapped, including in the past. If you want to change, you have to carve new neuronal pathways. You can visualize this at first, step on to a new path. Over time that becomes your new default. The more you visualize and then walk it in daily life, the stronger it becomes. The old paths fade away.”

This I saw on a recent Facebook video, my first reaction being, “Hey! That’s what I always say! How did he know that, lol?!” In any event, studies seem to indicate that this is the case, so I welcome him getting this message out there.

I get to do this

Meditation is the process of switching out the old stuck thought patterns with new healthier ones that take us somewhere new. I was thinking that a good place to start is simply by switching out:

I have to do this.

with:

I get to do this.

For example, switch out “I have to go to work” with “I get to go to work.” “I have to make dinner for my family” with “I get to make dinner for my family.” “I have to take care of my cat” with “I get to take care of my cat.” “I have to call my grandparents” with “I get to call my grandparents.” “I have to study” with “I get to study.” “I have to go to the dentist” with “I get to go to the dentist.” Etc. You get the idea. Reframe our life as lucky and meaningful rather than burdensome, and the luckier we feel and become.

I saw a report just today about the three top things that make life happier according to studies worldwide: (1) meaning/purpose, (2) genuine community, and (3) volunteering (which can involve both). Material possessions and money for sure make life more comfortable; but study after study shows that once our minimum needs for food, clothing, shelter, and medicine are met, money cannot buy us happiness.

Patient acceptance

We could apply this switch to all our meditation practices, including patient acceptance of all that’s going on in our lives, switching, “I have to be patient” with “I get to be patient.” As Venerable Geshe Kelsang says:

We should remember that every opportunity to develop anger is also an opportunity to develop patience. ~ How to Solve Our Human Problems

Every time we take that opportunity, we are carving a peaceful new pathway through the forest to a sparkling new destination, whereupon the old irritating loopy pathway is slowly but surely becoming impassable through lack of use.

I would wager that there’s always a difficult person or two in our life – at some times more than others, but there’s always someone, isn’t there? It could be someone close to us or someone we don’t even know personally, either way they are provoking us in some way.

It’s very useful to hear what Buddha had to say about how we can deal with difficult people, and this doesn’t mean by doing anything to them – we don’t beat them over the head, or anything like that, we don’t do anything to them at all other than changing them through changing our view.

The truth is that if we really want to deal with difficult people, especially such that they don’t keep coming back, the only real way to do that is to deal with our own irritated states of mind, our own fears, and our own inability to be happy without these people behaving. We can’t control people, not much anyway, not for any length of time, not even if we are ruler of the universe, which we’re not. The only thing we can control is our own reactions, attitudes, and world view. Right?

In Buddhism, we talk about inner problems and outer problems – here’s a reminder for those of you discovering this blog for the first time. Inner problems are when we react with an unhappy feeling to something we perceive as not being right or as going wrong. This can be difficult people, difficult situations, or even our own problematical states of mind. At this point we have an actual problem, a mental problem, an inner problem.

Okay, let’s say our friend has criticized us. Is that a problem? Why might some of you say yes and others say no? The yes people are probably saying “Yes” because you’re reacting to that criticism with an unhappy mind, whereas the no people are saying “No” because you’re finding a way to stay calm. This shows that the difficult person is not an inner problem but an outer problem. We can apply this to anything.

Life is chock full of outer problems. Many things don’t go according to plan and many things happen that we don’t want to happen.

Every day we encounter hundreds of situations we do not like, from stubbing our toe or having a disagreement with our partner to discovering that our house has burned down or that we have cancer. ~ How to Solve Our Human Problems

There’s always something to try and sort out in our lives! But whether these outer problems become actual or inner problems depends on our reaction, our view, our mind – all things we can gain control over through practice. This is really what we are doing with the practice of patience – patiently accepting difficult situations and difficult people in a way that keeps our mind strong, flexible, peaceful, and purposeful.

There can be no end to difficult people because while people have delusions they’re always going to be doing strange things. How can they not? If we’re waiting for everybody else to get rid of their weird delusions – their own anger, dislikes, attachments, greed, insecurities, neuroticisms, arrogance, selfishness – we are going to be waiting for a very, very long time. If we expect people to sort themselves out before we can feel okay … I don’t know, how is that working out for you?! We know it’s never actually going to happen because delusions make people difficult. Plenty of people probably find us difficult, for that matter, and that is not because we aren’t lovely at heart but because of our weird delusions. So if we’re waiting for everyone else to behave, if we can only feel happy or problem-free when other people are being kind, reasonable, and fantastic, this is not an effective strategy for a peaceful and purposeful life.

When it comes to practicing patience, a key consideration is “What can we control?” There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and free from suffering all the time. Everybody has these two basic wishes and Foe Destroyers, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas have fulfilled them. However, we’re personally not fulfilling these wishes at the moment — are you happy all the time? Do you never feel unhappy? If we say no, this means that the way we’re reacting to situations in our life is not actually making us happy nor freeing us from problems, and this could be because we are trying to control the wrong things. Perhaps we are trying to control the externals of our life as the way to control our own reactions or states of mind, as opposed to directly controlling our mind.

When our coworker criticizes us and we get upset, we think they are the cause of our upset and therefore our problem, in which case the way to deal with this problem is to deal with them – criticize them back, for example, or get rid of them somehow. To solve this problem, they have to change, or go, right? As opposed to understanding, “This unhappiness is arising from my uncontrolled thoughts of hurt, fear, or anger, and – unlike my coworker – these are what I can change and control.”

I can’t control what people say and do, and to keep trying to do this is like hitting my head against a brick wall. As Atisha said:

Since you cannot tame the minds of others until you have tamed your own, begin by taming your own mind.

So really, when we talk about the practice of patience, we understand that we need to learn how to be completely happy in ourselves even when other people are behaving badly. It is possible to do this, and if we want a happy life we have to learn how to do this. We get to learn how to do this.

Bobbing and weaving

This January I realized, walking down a New York sidewalk, that it was not possible to walk in a straight line or at a certain pace. Too many things are coming at you from different directions – other pedestrians, dogs on leashes, piles of trash, trees, tables, sandwich boards, building materials, workers, people staring at their phones, etc. A woman walked out of a doorway, for example, right onto my oncoming path and just kept going; but (and talking of the relativity of time and space) I was also technically in her oncoming path. I swerved just in time.

If I insist on walking in a straight line in the direction and speed of my choosing, and someone gets in my way, that is going to be annoying. Not only will I have the outer problem of an obstacle, but I have the inner problem of irritation. Perhaps it will even make me anxious about setting out down the sidewalk, anticipating all sorts of obstacles that I don’t feel equipped to handle.

However, if I understand and accept the nature of New York sidewalks, I can adapt accordingly – even though all these interruptions or obstacles could be construed as outer problems, I don’t need to experience any inner problems. I can keep calm and carry on. Expecting to have to bob and weave to get down the street, I don’t mind it at all. In fact, it can even be somewhat enjoyable, never knowing what is going to pop up next. People love living in this city, after all, and will pay a king’s ransom to do so, even though, rich or poor, much of life here involves navigating unpredictable sidewalks.

A good metaphor for the journey of life. If I need things to go my way and not go wrong in order to be happy, I’m going to be upset or anxious with all the obstacles in my life’s path – all the things that don’t go my way and do go wrong. But if I understand the nature of samsara, I am prepared to bob and weave, and perhaps I can even come to enjoy the challenge.

(For the record, one New Yorker told me that there is another option – if you act really crazy, people will get out of your way.)

Comments please! Tell us how you deal (or don’t) with difficult people.