3 Little Tricks to Deal With People Who Offend You

By Leo Babauta Something that we struggle with daily, that eats us up and causes stress and anger: annoying people. You know those people: they cut in line, are rude to you in the office or at the restaurant, cut you off in traffic, talk loudly about obnoxious things, play loud music when you’re trying to concentrate, interrupt you, and so on. These offenses are violations of the way you think people should act. And so it burns you up. Don’t worry, I’m the same way. If you just keep letting these offensive people get to you, you’ll always be mad or annoyed. Life won’t be very good. But it’s something you can learn to deal with. I have to admit I’m not perfect at this, but here are three strategies I use that are helpful: Get Big. I learned this one from Zen teacher Robert Thomas, who uses “Get Big” as one of his slogans that helps him to be mindful. Imagine you’re a 2-year-old toddler, who can’t have a toy or some ice cream right this minute. This problem is your entire universe, because you have no perspective, and so … you throw a fit. This is the world of a 2-year-old (I should know, I’ve had 6 of them). But as adults, we know that this is a very small problem, and in fact there are lots of other things the 2-year-old could do to be happy. Sure, that’s easy for us — we have a bigger perspective. But when someone offends us, we have a small perspective — this little offense is t...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Happiness Source Type: blogs