Difficult people?
I haven't had much to say the last few days. I'm just kind of laying low and dreading doing business taxes tomorrow and Thursday. Friday brings an appointment in Salt Lake to take care of some more "business" business. The show must go on, I guess.
New glasses are ready to be picked up. Bifocals. Pride stopped me from getting them last time. This time, they're a necessity. (you can stop laughing, wife!)
So, the title of the post has absolutely nothing to do with all that stuff. If you do some hunting, you'll find it's two words I lifted from a comment on my last post. I have really no idea what the point of the comment was. I've talked about the challenges in my life before and honestly, I embrace them for what they are... learning experiences. If the comment was pointed at the wife, I'm gonna defend her.
Wendi is a lot of things, but one of them isn't difficult.
But there are difficult people we encounter every day. We live in Utah and it's my opinion that as a people we're generally self-focused or dismissive of others that we don't view as "just like us". I was born here and grew up here. I can say that with some authority.
It's kinda funny that comment would show up on my blog today. I was going to talk about how we act and what if we were treated the way we treated others. I heard this little story on the radio over the weekend that was along those lines. It was something I'd also read about, and as I've mentioned before, something I've had the opportunity to experience over the last year or two. Pretty much most of the things that have happened in my life have been things I've done to someone else over the course of mine. I'm 46, almost 47 years old and over the last two years, pretty much every rotten thing I've said or done has come back at me; in some cases at least four-fold.
I want you, dear reader, to think about that for a minute. Examine your own life and ask yourself if you'd be mentally prepared to handle having everything come back at you over your lifetime in such a relatively short period. The time for sowing was long, but the harvest was quick. And painful. I reaped what I sowed. I learned more in the last year than I ever could have hoped to know, though, and painful as it has been, it all was necessary.
But I digress... let's get back to difficult people. The world is full of them. Try changing lanes on I-15 and it won't take you very long to see what I'm talking about. For some reason, there are those that just can't let you in front of them. They get mad when people make mistakes. They're everyone's worst critic, harshest judge, and the list goes on and on.
I look at difficult people differently than I used to. I kind of feel badly for them. Before, they just used to upset me. I wonder sometimes what's going on in their lives to make them so hateful, so bitter, so...well, difficult. Smiling and a kind word seem to go a long way toward defusing them. Still, there are those special difficult people that being nice doesn't work too well with. Walking away certainly does.
The poster mentioned that difficult people give us different perspectives on life. I couldn't disagree more. What changed my perspective was a well timed bit of the Good News and that transformed me and my whole way of thinking. To me, difficult people are those that deserve a prayer or a question like, "is everything OK?" Mean people, well, there are just plain old mean and evil people in the world and they fall in a class by themselves. Difficult people present an opportunity to spread a little joy and sunshine with someone. It wasn't so much difficult people changing my perspective on life, but the Word of God changing my perspective on life and in doing so, it changed my opinion about people.
I'm not advocating treating people like they treat you. It's no fun and it's hurtful and hard sometimes I know, but the Bible says we're to love our enemies. We're supposed to pray for them, give to them when they're in need and love our neighbor as ourselves. It seems to me that's probably the best way to deal with difficult people.
Impossible people? Well, when you find that type of special person, the best advice is to leave them in the hands of the God of the Impossible. Nothing is too big for Him. We do come across people that for whatever reason, are better removed from our lives. The Bible talks about this as well. Sometimes, it's best to give these individuals over to the Lord and move forward.
Well, that's it for Wednesday. As an editorial note, I kind of cleaned this post up at eleven this morning and added a bit to it for clarity. It was early when I wrote it. Also, if the days in my posts don't seem to make sense it's because of the shift I work and sometimes I forget that it's tomorrow already when I get off work.
Oh, and thanks for reading the blog.
New glasses are ready to be picked up. Bifocals. Pride stopped me from getting them last time. This time, they're a necessity. (you can stop laughing, wife!)
So, the title of the post has absolutely nothing to do with all that stuff. If you do some hunting, you'll find it's two words I lifted from a comment on my last post. I have really no idea what the point of the comment was. I've talked about the challenges in my life before and honestly, I embrace them for what they are... learning experiences. If the comment was pointed at the wife, I'm gonna defend her.
Wendi is a lot of things, but one of them isn't difficult.
But there are difficult people we encounter every day. We live in Utah and it's my opinion that as a people we're generally self-focused or dismissive of others that we don't view as "just like us". I was born here and grew up here. I can say that with some authority.
It's kinda funny that comment would show up on my blog today. I was going to talk about how we act and what if we were treated the way we treated others. I heard this little story on the radio over the weekend that was along those lines. It was something I'd also read about, and as I've mentioned before, something I've had the opportunity to experience over the last year or two. Pretty much most of the things that have happened in my life have been things I've done to someone else over the course of mine. I'm 46, almost 47 years old and over the last two years, pretty much every rotten thing I've said or done has come back at me; in some cases at least four-fold.
I want you, dear reader, to think about that for a minute. Examine your own life and ask yourself if you'd be mentally prepared to handle having everything come back at you over your lifetime in such a relatively short period. The time for sowing was long, but the harvest was quick. And painful. I reaped what I sowed. I learned more in the last year than I ever could have hoped to know, though, and painful as it has been, it all was necessary.
But I digress... let's get back to difficult people. The world is full of them. Try changing lanes on I-15 and it won't take you very long to see what I'm talking about. For some reason, there are those that just can't let you in front of them. They get mad when people make mistakes. They're everyone's worst critic, harshest judge, and the list goes on and on.
I look at difficult people differently than I used to. I kind of feel badly for them. Before, they just used to upset me. I wonder sometimes what's going on in their lives to make them so hateful, so bitter, so...well, difficult. Smiling and a kind word seem to go a long way toward defusing them. Still, there are those special difficult people that being nice doesn't work too well with. Walking away certainly does.
The poster mentioned that difficult people give us different perspectives on life. I couldn't disagree more. What changed my perspective was a well timed bit of the Good News and that transformed me and my whole way of thinking. To me, difficult people are those that deserve a prayer or a question like, "is everything OK?" Mean people, well, there are just plain old mean and evil people in the world and they fall in a class by themselves. Difficult people present an opportunity to spread a little joy and sunshine with someone. It wasn't so much difficult people changing my perspective on life, but the Word of God changing my perspective on life and in doing so, it changed my opinion about people.
I'm not advocating treating people like they treat you. It's no fun and it's hurtful and hard sometimes I know, but the Bible says we're to love our enemies. We're supposed to pray for them, give to them when they're in need and love our neighbor as ourselves. It seems to me that's probably the best way to deal with difficult people.
Impossible people? Well, when you find that type of special person, the best advice is to leave them in the hands of the God of the Impossible. Nothing is too big for Him. We do come across people that for whatever reason, are better removed from our lives. The Bible talks about this as well. Sometimes, it's best to give these individuals over to the Lord and move forward.
Well, that's it for Wednesday. As an editorial note, I kind of cleaned this post up at eleven this morning and added a bit to it for clarity. It was early when I wrote it. Also, if the days in my posts don't seem to make sense it's because of the shift I work and sometimes I forget that it's tomorrow already when I get off work.
Oh, and thanks for reading the blog.
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