Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live Without Them
I studied Business Administration in university. At that time, which was about 23 years ago, it was the most common degree, especially with Asian students. How time flies… Anyway, during the course of my degree, I studied Psychology as one of my general requirement classes. To my surprise, I enjoyed that class very much, which made me realise that I like understanding people and how their minds work and un-work.
As I began my career after graduation, I also saw that I was more inclined to areas involving human resources, although my main role was in the operations and administrative departments. I was working in a manufacturing facility producing latex examination and surgical gloves, which at that time in the 90s, was not as fully automated as it is today. Therefore, I dealt a lot with people, from locals to foreign workers from Bangladesh to the UK; both male and female whose ages ranged from 18 to 65 years old. Some were highly educated like professors and some less educated like housekeepers.
After nine years in manufacturing, I embarked on another career in network marketing, which again involved dealing with loads of people. This time I dealt with people with different levels of greed, and saw how twisted people can get in order to reap personal financial gains. I guess I can say that it was from here that I started to see the other side of human nature, which was more complex and infuriating. If I had a degree in Psychology, and not Business Administration, I would have diagnosed these people as Psychos! As the leader of my team, I spent hours counselling them through their difficulties to the point I felt drained of every ounce of breath. Talk about being breathless!
In addition to human exposure at work, of course I had my share of human exposure in my personal life with friends and lovers. I am after all 44 years old and have never ever lived life as a hermit. In fact, I was considered aimlessly sociable. I loved my parties. Notice I speak in past tense (ahem!). At my age today, it takes too much effort and time to get ready for parties. Plus, I have three boys to raise and that in itself is my best party these days.
Now, I shall come to the essence of this article. The human race is indeed one which is filled with 500 shades of grey. You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. So with time and personal growth in the occupation of Living Life Happily, I have derived some guidelines, which make me still appreciate the light at the end of every human encounter. Let me share with you my five most favourite Guides to Living with People:
#1: It’s All About Me
These flowers are not for me???
Generally, people are selfish – regardless of their field, place or the occasion. People are always motivated by a personal agenda. Even when they come to the Dharma, or any spiritual centre, the initial reason is selfish – Finding Salvation for One’s Soul.
So with this in mind, when I am dealing with people, I will start with appealing to what ‘pleases’ them. I will accommodate in the direction of what they want to hear. One might say that this is hypocritical, and I would agree but instead of labelling the method, I ask you to check in with the motivation.
What is the point of communicating when people are not listening? And why are people not listening? Well… BECAUSE people generally only want to hear what they want to hear and say what they want to say BECAUSE it is ALL ABOUT THEM. So instead of fighting the ‘natural phenomenon’, I suggest going with the flow by first getting their attention, then proceeding to deeper meanings and achieving your initial motivation. Will this work? Yes, I believe so because intrinsically people do want to be Happy and Good. Why? Again, BECAUSE it is ALL ABOUT THEM!
So until you accept this, and work around it, you are not going to make much headway with your communication skills. And then you will literally end up only talking to yourself… and your pet.
2) Life IS Shades of Grey
It is never black or white. We have to see all that is in between the black and white. I feel that when we are so absolute in life and choose to see things in only either black or white, we make life harder than it should be.
There is one thing I learnt called unconditional listening. It is basically listening wholeheartedly without any interruptions from all your inner voices. It is to ‘see’ with your ears. And trust me, when you do this, you will see all the shades of grey. You will understand that most of the time, things in life are not what they are on first impression, and even if they are, you will also recognise that they are not permanent and thus can change to another shade of grey!
This I find to be quite true especially with complicated people – you will need several impressions before you can form one that is consistently the same shade of grey. Be compassionate to these ‘complicated’ people as they do not know better and are ignorant that life can be simple if they so choose. So until you can impart onto them this wisdom, be nice and go with their complicated shades of grey until you have a chance to stabilise them to only two shades of grey, and then you can proceed on stabilising them to one consistent shade of grey.
3) Time Heals All Confusion
When I hear someone say, “I’m confused”, I will think to myself, “Yeah, right! Which part of what I said is so complicated, it was in English”. Ok… I am being righteous but seriously, think about it, is one really confused or just too lazy to understand?
What’s my point here?
If we can accept that people declare confusion because they are not willing to accept what you are saying, and you accept this, it will improve your skills in communication. How?
When you accept this, and what you want to share and say is important, then you will be more alert, sensitive and skilful in the delivery of your communication. Communication is not about talking (that you can do with yourself) but about relating your message in a way that the listener gets you. It involves practice and observation to assess the person with whom you want to communicate. And it seriously involves you listening to them! Ah ha… that’s a tough one, huh? Half the world does not listen! I am guilty of that too, more so five years ago, but I am much better now.
Thus, with time and practice to master the skill of communication, you will heal all confusion.
4) Personal Judgement is Overrated
I am guilty of this but I am watching myself these days not to say it. We have all heard conversations which start with, “Personally…”. Most of the time when I hear this I will think to myself, “Oops… looks like this is going to be a conversation with personal judgements”. Our personal judgements come from our ego, don’t you think? In any situation, if you want to leave the person better off, you cannot hold on to your personal opinions because it is not about you but the other person.
In any communication, the objective is to relate a message so that the other person gets it. So if our thoughts are laced with personal judgement and opinions, how do we see the other person’s point of view? I am not saying that we do not form our personal opinions on things, but this should not be from the onset of things but perhaps, if need be, at the end AFTER we hear the other person out.
On top of this, when we are absorbed in our own opinions, then we might as well really just talk to ourselves. Look in the mirror and have your best conversation. When we listen to our own voices, how can we hear what others are saying? How do we learn and grow? How do we make things better? How do we end conflict?
Our personal judgement is neither bible nor an authority, but simply an opinion formed with experience and time. And it is not absolute. It can change with more time and experience. Let’s ask ourselves how many times we have changed our minds over our own judgements? A simple example: You marry the love of your life, only to divorce him or her 20 years later. What changed? Our personal judgement. Thus my point.
5) Truth Hurts But Won’t Kill You
Bad driving can kill you, drinking cyanide will kill you but the truth won’t. If the truth kills, then all survivors, you and I included, are all liars. So, if you are not a pathological liar and the truth won’t kill you, why do we resist the truth? Why do we not face up to what is true although it is not nice to hear or know?
Facing the painful truth that I was a spoilt brat who always wanted things my way led me down the path of much unnecessary pain and mistakes, including wrong friends and bad business decisions. Today, I am much wiser with fewer mistakes in my life, mistakes which cost me too much in the past.
Accepting the truth is hard and hurts in the beginning because accepting the truth means taking responsibility and making a change. When you see beyond the initial inconveniences, the truth is actually liberating.
I will be honest. I am still a work-in-progress, even if I have come to understand and accept these guidelines. The truth is, if I did not have the faults myself, how could I see them in others? And now that I am involved in Dharma work, how can I not have the compassion and human kindness to cut back on my flaws so that I can serve others better? So, if we can all just improve ourselves every day by making that conscious mental effort, I assure you we can live happily and can Live with Them. Most of all, we can live with ourselves!
Lastly, I must share my emotional journey that has allowed me to get to where I am now, where I can actually write about my top five Guidelines. I am sharing my journey so that you can learn from it and decide to practice Surviving People sooner than later.
- I went through anger, despair, resignation, hopelessness, you name it!
- I cannot tell you how many countless times I visualised taping the person’s mouth shut and running masking tape round and round their head!!
- But with time, my negative and hostile emotions settled. Having the Dharma in hand definitely helped the process in terms of time efficiency. I could escape my destructive emotions faster.
- After the emotions settled, I could see the light.
- One more thing, during the period of adjusting my emotions and my thoughts, I went through a stage of detachment. I was also highly impatient and irritable. I was accused of being selfish and cold. I did not let this deter me and I let the process continue because I was driven by the fact that I wanted to be Happy and I couldn’t live without humans around me, so I had to find ways to survive with them and yet be Happy without them. And more importantly, share my life to serve a bigger purpose effectively.
With this… Happy Practising the Art of Living with 500 Shades of Grey! J
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Thank you Li Kim for sharing this article based on your personal experience. I totally agree on what you write in this article. The tips in this article can also be put into practice so that we can become a better person. Dharma really makes us see things differently from another angle. From there, we can react accordingly.
With folded palms,
Vivian
Thank you Li Kim for sharing your thoughts about how to engage with others what they might be thinking at any time and also how to communicate. I think you are correct to say that, we think about self benefit almost non stop and sometimes in order to cut through and get the message across, we need to communicate in such a way that we can catch just enough of their attention and get them to participate or engage in an action that benefit themselves and others.
THANK YOU Li Kim. I cannot agreed enough of all the 5 points you shared above. Everything you shared were so true. It’s like something we do not need to learn but know how to do it since we were born. It’s so strongly implanted into our mind and we automatically conducting it everyday. So i think whoever read about the article will feel the pain because realizing the truth hurts.
THANK YOU for giving us the solution on this. This is very important for those who are ready to accept and moving forward. I need to work hard on all these 5 points especially the confusion part. What you mentioned here which really hit me: is one really confused or just too lazy to understand? I have no patient to let others finish what they want to say hence I confused. Then i confused others when i convey the message. How can I not confusing others if I myself already confused. This is what I really have to put effort on to make it right.
Thank you so much for your unfiltered communication about people. It is true, can’t live with them…can’t live without them. This is probably why in the 8 Verses of Mind Transformation by Geshe Langri Tangpa (https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/eight-verses-of-thought-transformation.html), people is the main ingredient for mind transformation and spiritual awakening and peace.
As much as interacting with people can be completely daunting and disappointing and sometimes feel like a waste of time because nothing seems to be getting through that thick cloud of grey shades, some conversations I shared with people have been a beacon of hope and aspiration.
I thank you again Li Kim for this piece of honesty that made me think about people and their impact on life. Please share more our your candid thoughts and advice as they are simple, direct, relatable and useful!
Thank you for your honest sharing. Life is not a bed of roses because beneath it are all the thorns. Your sharing about people, your encounters are realistic and factual but not necessarily negative. We are all selfish people, it has always been all about US. Instead of seeing that as a bad thing, accepting it as a factual thing and work with that seems like a much better option.
This one really stood out for me – “So if our thoughts are laced with personal judgement and opinions, how do we see the other person’s point of view?” Very often within a minute into any conversation, I would have developed some form of judgement or opinions on what the person said or assumptions how the conversation is going to go. In fact, I probably had the entire conversation already mapped out in my head before the person even got 2 sentences out. So I’m just listening to noises as oppose to what the person is actually saying.
Everything will pass, good or bad. Pain is just pain, it too will pass. The truth hurts but doesn’t kill. The emotion, the state of mind at that point of time is just temporary. There is no need to suppress it or hold on to it, or analyse it, it is okay to just let it pass through. Something I also picked up from recent Inner Peace Retreat.
These are 5 very practical guidelines that can really change the way we communicate. Just being able to truly communicate with each other, we can actually resolve most of the self-created unhappiness in our lives.
Dear Pastor Moh Mei,
I indeed enjoyed reading your response especially about the part how you would have already mapped out the whole conversation in your head before the person reached their second sentence. I cannot admit more that I have been guilty if the same … ha ha ha. It is a conscious effort to make myself stop doing that. And each time I succeed on stopping my personal judgements, I do have better and more meaningful conversations. Thank you for taking the time to share your views 🙂
Dear Phng Li Kim lah!!
Thank you so much for sharing such indispensable article. I really learnt a lot about the way of communicating. It was very mind transforming to read through your beautiful story and illustrations. This may help lot of people like me. Understanding others is very important as life is not just about ourselves. everything is about them and we have to do for others. I remembered one phrase Rinpoche said, “When someone tells you something you do not like, push yourself to listen. Push yourself to be open. Push yourself to change your habit of closing people out.” Your sharing gave much deeper understanding. 🙂 Thank you _()_
Dear Pema Thinley lah!!
Much of the foundation in which I have relied upon to come up with these guidelines comes from the teachings of Rinpoche. Rinpoche is an amazing teacher who makes it for simple-tons like me to understand and apply. I have always said and believed that Rinpoche is the Lama of our modern times. His direct ways and creative methods of teaching allows many to benefit because he makes it apply to our lives in this modern age where we are all so easily distracted and engrossed in many things which we deem important but does not bring us lasting peace and happiness. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
Thank you Likim for sharing your thoughts and what you’ve learned about co-existing with others. The bottom line is it’s easier to change ourselves than to change others. As Rinpoche always explains, all of us have our own karma, hence our differences. If we hope for others to tolerate and have patience in us, then we should also accord the same for others.
My personal experience is that most of the negative reactions we have when others behave in a certain manner are actually from past emotional baggage that we have kept buried in us. Situations and others are only triggers.
When we practice the dharma teachings consistently, we will realize that after a while, we will have less negative emotions being triggered. It’s not that we have become numb to others and situations, we have learned to embrace and accept them for who or what they are. And why we meet these people and be in these situations is because of our karma since beginningless time.
Dear Li Kim
Thank you for sharing your personal thoughts. Indeed sentient being pyshce is so complex and perplex, one just doesn’t know where or how to start to deal with them.
There are some who live self righteous lives and in so doing, are almost annoying to the extent they keep pointing out others’ faults even in situ. The idea perhaps to educate that person but as we all know one has to be sensitive to others’ sensitivities. Is it any wonder why others are avoiding these type of people for ‘fear’ of being criticised or ridiculed (all the time – just too exhausting). These are the sort of people (please don’t get me wrong, who have good hearts) but find it difficult to point out the faults of the ‘prince’ but can point out the faults of the ‘pauper’ with much ease.
Then you have those who blatantly do not admit their own faults but gladly points out others faults and when the tables are turned, they accuse the others to have such huge egos to accept their faults and instead finger pointing back at the accuser. Like it or not EGO is around in existence as long as sentient beings are around – boo hoo hoo..
You also have those who find it difficult to be ‘nice’ amongst family members or close friends but when they are out with other people (strangers and or acquaintences), they are so courteous. Courtesy and civic mindedness is perhaps how people ought to conduct themselves at all time, but as the proverbial saying goes – Familiarity breeds contempt and often do, not out of choice but of habit.
Anyway, my point is like you said but (paraphased), we don’t need them and yet we cannot live without them….
Jason
Dear Jason,
I find your response interesting and I thank you for sharing. I see and have also experienced the kind of people which you have written about. And I will agree that there have been so many times I thought my head would explode. Then of course when I am calm and mature about things, and I embrace the Dharma teachings by my Guru, I see that we cannot change the world and its inhabitants but we can indeed start the work within our own selves, bringing forth the Buddha within. And, I realised that many a times, we cannot see the faults, and virtues, in others unless they are in existence in ourselves. Yes, I know this was quite a scary realisation… “I have those faults too!? Oh No!” This subsequently made me choose to look at the positive and virtues in others so that I too could recognise they exist in me too. 🙂
Dear Li Kim,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and guidelines on how to live with poeple. I personally is charged guilty for all the above no-nos. I was a selfish kid that lives like the world revolves around me. I was very judgemental to everyone and anyone that I meet. My first impression of them will dictate how I will treat them and how much I will want to interact with them. I was lucky to have a bunch of close friends that tolerated my obnoxious behaviour.
However, everything changed when I started to read up dharma books and listen to Rinpoche’s youtube teachings. The guidelines you have given above is quite similar to some of the lessons that I learnt as well. I learn to understand the people around me more and what are they feeling at that very moment. I learnt not to be judgemental because no ones likes to be close to someone like that. I am still in the process of transforming and your guidelines really pointed it out clearly for me reflect upon myself again.
Hi Chris,
I am happy that this article could resonate with you. I can relate to your sharing about who you were before, sounds like we were carved from a similar stone. hahahaha… Enjoy your transformation to be better. Rinpoche’s teachings are really practical and insightful. It is also easy to understand and apply into our daily lives.