Life is full of confusing situations. Moments where we feel like telling someone off, but we have to pretend to respect them and/or enjoy their presence. There will be people in one’s life who constantly try your patience and push you to the edge of your sanity. These folks can even be relatives close to you. I am sure you all have had similar circumstances and don’t be fooled by anyone who denies similar experiences. They are either lying or are God in human form.
Every time I am in these situations, I become visibly ambivalent towards the person or the situation at hand. I am not really good at acting or lying, but at least I try to be nice. Sometimes, this silly attempt (to be nice) creates confusing conditions. So, I have trained myself to be as honest as I can about a situation or person. This does not sit well with folks in my heritage, yet I get away with it sometimes with the excuse that I was raised in America.
What to do? How do you set boundaries for folks, who think of themselves as demigods? How do you deal with selfish, inconsiderate individuals? Well, M.S. Irani has an answer, he calls it the “Art of right adjustment”. He claims through self-forgetfulness and love one can learn to rightly adjust to everyone.
Ironically, when the boys were 5 and 3, my father visited us in Maryland and wrote his memoir from this trip in a book called: A feather in the wind. Dad apparently assumed the role of a feather, who had surrendered to the wind (my boys were more of a tornado…) to blow him anywhere they please. As we know kids are selfish and self-centered, and learning to go along with all their wishes, required tons of patience. Kudos to my dad. (May be he lasted that month, because my mom was the feather in their relationship).
The bottom line is, with opulent self-forgetfulness and love, one can deal with almost anyone. Of course, self-forgetfulness should only apply to situations where LOVE prevents one from joining a different weather system altogether! We also need long breaks or venting sessions with our besties, but it’s doable. I call the process IASB:
Identify the person(s) or the situation,
Accept them/it for who/what they are,
Surrender and become a feather in the wind,
Be sure to take breaks and recharge often, and don’t forget nothing is forever…
AMBKJ