I don’t have much to add, but in the spirit of Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate, I want to state that I’ve found this post very insightful and very useful. Thanks for posting!
Being able to pick out positive traits in people that you might otherwise not be able to stand will help you win in several ways: 1) You’ll enjoy life more; 2) You’ll get more people on your side; 3) You’ll have more access to different modes of thought which, while they may be wrong, can help strengthen the foundations of your own ideas.
This actually does work. I tested it out in my day job, which requires regular interaction with people whose company I do not usually like, and found myself almost enjoying it! We shouldn’t be afraid to like people, and to enjoy ourselves, for fear of actually becoming like them. If you make the effort to be friendly to that disagreeable person and find something pleasant about them, you’re not making their disagreeable qualities pleasant (and thereby running the risk of adopting them yourself). So, don’t be afraid to be nice, and by extension, to tolerate tolerance. This is a lesson I’m still struggling to learn.
I don’t have much to add, but in the spirit of Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate, I want to state that I’ve found this post very insightful and very useful. Thanks for posting!
Being able to pick out positive traits in people that you might otherwise not be able to stand will help you win in several ways: 1) You’ll enjoy life more; 2) You’ll get more people on your side; 3) You’ll have more access to different modes of thought which, while they may be wrong, can help strengthen the foundations of your own ideas.
This actually does work. I tested it out in my day job, which requires regular interaction with people whose company I do not usually like, and found myself almost enjoying it! We shouldn’t be afraid to like people, and to enjoy ourselves, for fear of actually becoming like them. If you make the effort to be friendly to that disagreeable person and find something pleasant about them, you’re not making their disagreeable qualities pleasant (and thereby running the risk of adopting them yourself). So, don’t be afraid to be nice, and by extension, to tolerate tolerance. This is a lesson I’m still struggling to learn.