Monday, February 25

Difficult People....

We all have them in our lives. Did someone come to mind when you read the title of today’s blog? How have you handled the difficult people in your life?

I worked with a difficult person for several years. She was very opinionated, very judgmental and very out spoken. She scared me to death! If I tried to be nice to her, she would fault me when I didn’t measure up to her demands. When I ignored her, she bad-mouthed me to others. When I tried to shed a different light on her opinions, she nailed me to the wall with arguments I couldn’t defend.

She was a difficult person for me to get along with. The trouble was that I had to get along with her because she was my co-worker and every day was spent with her. She was older than me and her experience out-weighed any insight I might have on how to do our jobs.

What to do? I stayed out of her way as much as I could. I agreed with her. I acted like I was her cheer-leader, completely sacrificing my better judgment… I didn’t know what else to do. I simply wanted to survive.

Ahhhh, what the years have taught me!

Not really, I had to hear some teaching first that helped me gain perspective. Chip Ingram, an author and teacher, made a statement:

“Everyone ACTS in a way that makes sense to them”

That stopped me in my tracks.

I really never spent time thinking about the perspective of this co-worker. I just reacted and went into survival mode. The truth of this statement became evident to me as I stayed in touch with that person long after I stopped working with her. Our paths crossed and she continued to reach out to me. I learned about her personal life and I saw her in a different light other than just as a co-worker. It took time and patience to try to ‘walk in her shoes’ but it made a difficult situation easier and I learned more about myself and my rush to judgement as I learned more about her.

Who is the difficult person in your life? Try pulling on her/his pair of shoes today and become a student of that person rather than a judge.

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