Difficult, Or Simply Formed Elsewhere

Each person carries a manner of moving through life that belongs to them alone. That is easiest to take seriously once you notice that every human being stands in a distinct position, and nobody else is standing quite where they stand.

We grow up in different places, shaped by a range of influences nobody chose. The preferences, values and beliefs we hold are bound up closely with where we came from, and the impulse to make our own experience particular is instinctive, because doing so is what lets us cope when we have to face things alone. The result is that each of us carries a perspective that is genuinely ours and not quite anybody else’s.

What that means in a difficult room

Interacting peacefully and usefully with people from every walk of life is first a matter of understanding where they are coming from. Once you have some of that, you can adjust your expectations, which stops you making assumptions about them that were never warranted.

Because in the middle of a disagreement, the assumption arrives on its own. They are being difficult. They are being unreasonable. They are just stubborn. We become frustrated when somebody close by does not share our opinion, or will not support what we are trying to do.

It is far more likely that the person in front of you simply holds a different notion of what matters in a life. Stubbornness and a different set of priorities look identical from the outside and require completely different responses.

The move that opens it

When there is a barrier between you and somebody else, think of questions you could ask that would give you a fuller picture of their point of view. Not rhetorical ones. Actual ones, to which you do not know the answer.

What you often discover is that the difference in perspective dividing you is not really about the matter under discussion. It is attached to an insecurity or some personal difficulty that shapes how they see everything, and the argument you are having is a proxy. Asking what they are protecting will get you further than establishing who is correct.

Two honest limits

The first: you will never fully grasp the complexity of another person, and you do not need to. You can go a very long way on the simple habit of reaching towards people in a spirit of sympathetic comprehension, and stopping there is not a failure.

The second, and this one matters more. Accepting that somebody was formed elsewhere is not the same as accepting whatever they do. Understanding why a person behaves badly explains the behaviour, it does not licence it, and there is a version of tolerance that quietly becomes an excuse for putting up with harm. Respect the right of every person to determine their own course. That right ends where it starts costing somebody else theirs.