For years now I’ve lived life as an exercise of “How can I find shama in this situation?†Well I have one personality trait that has posed a humongous hurdle to finding inner-peace—my fierce need to be liked. That’s right, I want people to like me, and in the past when they didn’t, I found it had the potential to eat away at me, threatened to plunge me into despair, and left me questioning whether or not I was a good person.
Before I go further, I want the punch line of this post up front and center: There is not one person on planet earth who is liked by everyone. It’s absolutely impossible, and striving to make that happen will bring internal conflict, instead of shama, into one’s life.
Recently I experienced a hiccup of a misunderstanding that reminded me of something that happened over a decade ago. All these years later, the sting still exists. I was at an event and was attempting to round up a large group of people, when my friend (let’s call her Lucy) came up and asked me a question. I don’t remember what the question was, but I do remember being epically distracted because of everything else going on. I answered without really thinking through the question, and the answer and my delivery apparently made no sense to Lucy and pissed her off (I don’t blame her, I was trying to do too many things at once, which is always a recipe for communication disaster). On her way out of the event, Lucy corned me and proceeded to yell at me for the way I handled her question. And then it was like a damn burst: she continued with an angry litany of my flaws as a friend.
Here’s the thing about me: I get flustered when people yell, especially if I’m not expecting that anger. So, with panic-induced tunnel vision, I desperately tried to calm Lucy down. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I said or if it helped or hurt the situation, but it was likely the latter. I do remember asking her if we could push a reset button.
The reset never happened. I made a couple big friendship gestures after this, but Lucy had already created a narrative about me that she was convinced was true. In fact, the harder I tried, likely the more pathetic and disingenuous I seemed to her. I’ve never thought ill about Lucy (I still don’t) and my intentions towards her were never negative, but I’ll never convince her of that. No one can change a personal narrative except the individual who created it.
And let’s face it, as perverse as this is, sometimes it just feels good to be mad and to direct our rage towards someone. But feeling good doesn’t make it right.
It takes a lot of practice to take a step back, breathe through the anger, and find the necessary stillness to view a situation with clarity. I’ve learned that when I do this, I often realize I’m looking at a person or situation through a lens that is clouded by my mood, hormones, insecurities, or personal regrets.
More often than not I realize I’m taking something personally that isn’t at all about me. When it comes down to it, I believe that most people have good intentions, but who the hell knows what is happening in their lives to mask those intentions as something else?
Had Lucy and I sat down and calmly spoken with open hearts, my guess is that she would have understood that I’ve always liked and admired her and that she misread the intent behind my words and actions. But that didn’t happen.
And so it is that Lucy doesn’t like me.
But that’s okay. It’s taken me many years to realize that I actually don’t need everyone to like me. There’s a lovely freedom in that mindset. So, when presented with a situation like this in the future, I know there are three questions to ask myself: (1) Have I worked to find the divine in this person?; (2) Have I acted with good intentions, and apologized when I have not?; and (3) Is it better to walk away rather than to engage?
The only thing I can control is myself and the way I see the world. So, it’s OK if you don’t like me. I know what’s in my heart, I like myself, and that’s enough for me.
Comments on this entry are closed.