Being with Someone Who Is Difficult
Despite the title of this blog post, there really are not any difficult people—there are only people that I have difficulty relating to and being with. To say that John is a difficult person is to place the problem in John. This is unskillful because it tends to focus my efforts on changing John (which is usually what we try to do but are unsuccessful), and I have very little control over John. The place I need to focus my attention is on changing how Dale responds to John, which is something that I have a great deal of control over, especially when I have learned how to observe my own mind and behavior. If I can learn to choose to respond skillfully and not just react from habit and conditioning, my relationship with John will change even if John does not. This is a very big subject so it’s best here to focus on a few ke...
