Humans are social beings – which means that everyone has the need to feel included in a society where communication of any sort takes place. Whatever this society constitues of, whether it’s based on the Internet, your family and closest friends, your neighborhood, your school, your work, or any combination of them, it is a society formed by people with different lives, and we need to be able to relate to them in some manner or fashion.
This new topic, Interpersonal Relationships, aims to discuss the ways we have to understand each other and points that will enable us to live with this variety of different people in a harmonious way. It takes work, discipline and patience – but the fruits are plenty and at the end, you become more included in the society you choose to be a part of.
Understanding
When we can’t relate to someone it is so because we don’t understand their actions. Maybe you dislike the way that person talks to someone else. Maybe you dislike the clothes that person decides to use. Whatever it is, this feeling of uneasiness and the inability to accept this person comes from your lack of understanding.
“The person does not fail to relate to you. You fail to understand the person.”
One thought is to only choose to relate well to those who have many things which are common to you. Whoever is too different or ”too wrong” you choose to ignore, reject or simply not relate to in any level. If you think that way, it is not wrong. It is however, limiting. We are here as students of life, and lessons will come inside many different packages. We can always learn from another person, no matter what the person looks like or how we judge this person to be.
“Finding a common ground eliminates differences and enables a good relationship”
It is all about finding things that you have in common with another person. This is as true when you were a kid, trying to make new friends in the first day of class, all the way to adulthood. The key is common ground. If you meet someone who thinks mostly the same way, or in a compatible way, than you then it’s easy to relate. Your opinions match and most likely your dislikes also match. There is therefore a sense of agreement between you two. A friendship can easily be constructed.
This notion can be taken to any relationship, even if between enemies. What is the common ground that all of share, no matter how old we become, regardless of social class, skin tone, religion, culture, creed, belief? What do I have in common with you, my dear reader? Well, that’s too easy:
“We are both human. Both of us want to be happy in our lives. Both of us have desires, wants, needs and aspirations. We have dreams. We have felt the same feelings of sadness, sorry, happiness, longing, lack, fulfillment… at some point of our lives. We have people who love us. We have people whom we love. We have made mistakes in our lives.”
You say that you have nothing in common with that irritating person from your office. With that bossy manager. With that creepy coworker. Yet, you have so much in common! Just by being another human being, we have so much in common. We share the same ancestry, we share the same planet. We actually have a lot in common.
This may sound far-fetched, but I hope you see by now how many common things we can find with anyone, at any time. And this is the first topic of Interpersonal Relationships – the ability to understand each other, coming from a common ground.
You may not agree with my actions. You may not agree with my words. But just as you are entitled to pursue your happiness in the best way that you can manage, so do I have the same right, to do the same thing, as you are doing. I have the right to try to be happy, in the best way that I can.
“Everyone is just tryingto be happy. And how they do it, will be different from person to person.”
You don’t have to agree with me to become my friend. It is my right to be an individual. I will live my life by following the paths that I choose. You will also live your life, by following the paths that you choose. We may not walk on the same lane, but we are all walking in the same road. So now don’t look at me as someone so different than you – I am not. At the same time, don’t consider yourself to be so different from others – you are not. You are not better, nor worse, than anyone else. The rethoric is also true – no one is better nor worse than you, no matter what decisions they have made in their lives.
When you judge, you automatically put up a barrier between you and the person. There’s no need for fear, for rejection. When we see the other person as a fellow human being, not so different than you or me, that is when true acceptance can take place, and then, you see that you’re really not that different.
By understanding the common ground – the things that make each one of us human – we stop judging other people. Your ways may work for you, but they may not always work for me. I understand your individuality – that you are entitled to search your happiness by any means you find necessary.I also, search for happiness by following any means I trust to be necessary, but I know that my ways may not be your ways, and that’s OK. We can still be friends.
Because now I see that you are the same as me. You want the same things that I want. You are an individual, who will not think like me. Your past mistakes are yours only to judge. We are both here today, trying our best, to be happy.
That is our common ground. That is the one thing that we both share.
And that is the source of our understanding. That is, the source of our agreement.
