Deciding People Mean Well

No matter how kind or compassionate or generous we may be, people are going to hurt us. That’s a reality of being in relation with other humans. People fuck up, and our feelings get hurt. We get angry. We sometimes retaliate, even when we don’t mean to. 

Everybody behaves like a jerk sometimes. Welcome to the human condition.

However, even when we’re the ones who have behaved poorly – been snippy or outright shitty to the people around us – we rarely set out intending to cause harm. But it happens all the same. Does that make us an asshole? I don’t think so. It just means we’re as fallible as the next guy.

There’s a saying you’ll hear in recovery rooms: we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions while others judge us by our actions. When we fuck up with the people in our lives, we usually focus on what we meant to do. How we didn’t intend to hurt anyone, so obviously they should forgive us, or stop making such a big deal out of things.

We just tend to forget that idea when other people fuck up. We’re looking at their actions, and it’s super easy to fall into narratives about why they did what they did. We make up stories about how certain behaviors are an indicator of what kind of person they are. 

They showed up late, so they don’t respect me or my time. 

Their work was sub-par, so clearly they’re lazy or stupid.

They interrupted me or spoke down to me during a meeting, so they’re obviously just an inconsiderate asshole.

Except, all of that’s just bullshit I’m telling myself to justify and fuel my own anger. I take the facts – tardiness, unsatisfactory work, impolite behavior – and jump to character assessments that ultimately just leave me pissed off at people, stuck in my own judgmental pit of gloom.

Whether I realize it in the moment or not, that’s a choice I’m making. We get to choose the stories we make up about ourselves and the people in our lives. So why not try making up nicer stories for a change?

Using Irritation to Check Ourselves

Lately, I’ve been cranky. I can usually see that, even if I can’t always pull myself out of it very quickly. I can also recognize that my cranky-McCrankypants attitude is partly due to overextending myself with trying to do all the things, partly the breathework/healing process I’m in the midst of, and partly just whatever the fuck my hormones and neurotransmitters and general moodiness have been getting up to. 

And when I’m cranky, it’s suuuuuuper easy to waste a lot of time focusing on what everyone else is doing wrong. The clients who are being unreasonable, the instructor who is taking up too much space and wasting my time, the grocery store that isn’t staffing itself properly, the stupid fucking bees being all up in my garden like they belong there! (Ha! Joke’s on me – the bees belong there more than I do).

The trouble is that being cranky can sometimes feel good. There’s a degree of satisfaction that comes from righteous indignation, from getting to feel superior in my judgment and assessment of the world around me. I’m right and everyone/thing else is doing it wrong! RAWR! 

But just like eating cookies for breakfast or an entire bag of Cheetos instead of lunch, fueling myself on irritation might feel good in the short term but it’ll take a toll on me over time. Rather than using irritation like an energy drink – trying to compensate for lack of sleep or poor self care by pumping myself full of quick-fix gunk – a better use of my negativity is to treat it as a signal that I’ve probably got some work to do.

Remembering the “Rules” Are Arbitrary

The muttering in my head about how other people aren’t acting right is generally a sign that: a) I’m taking myself much too seriously, and b) I’m forgetting that all of those “shoulds” are just rules that I made up! Me. In my head. (And society. Some of it comes from cultural conditioning that may or may not be toxic.)

But let’s all just take a moment and remember that all of our “shoulds,” for the most part, are just a bunch of shit we made up to help us know how to act and feel safe in the world.

Now, traffic laws exist for a reason. We super probably shouldn’t run red lights – as it’s a dangerous thing to do. I feel comfortable asserting that we should generally strive to act in ways that don’t harm or endanger ourselves or others. 

Beyond that, though? I dunno. It’s not really up to me. And when people aren’t acting the way I would in any given situation, that doesn’t make them wrong. Not unless I’m more inclined to be right than I am to be content in the world. 

It just means that they have a different set of made up rules in their heads. They have a different idea about what’s “right” or wrong, what’s important and what’s not, how to show up well or not. 

The path to greater contentment in my life is reminding myself that they are just as entitled to make that shit up for themselves as I am. 

And as long as I’m making shit up, I’ll likely feel a LOT better if I decide they mean well. That whatever they did or didn’t do wasn’t meant to hurt me. It probably wasn’t even about me in the first place! And I have some agency around what I choose to believe about it all.

Giving People an “A”

I recently read The Art of Possibility, and it’s a fucking lovely book. Highly recommend it. And one of the practices that it offers for living a more joyful, inquisitive, and expansive life is the idea of giving people an “A.” Yes, as in treating the world around us like the classroom that it is and giving everyone an “A” instead of ranking them according to arbitrary and damaging comparisons.

Now, not all of us are type A personalities, or “A” students, or perfectionists, or people pleasers. Yet most of us, when it comes down to it, do want to feel like we’ve done well. We want to show up and be a good person, and do a good job, and have other people recognize our efforts. 

If that feels true for you, dear reader, then I invite you to consider that it’s true for everyone else in your life – even that person at work who drives you absolutely up the wall. While he may not pay attention in meetings, while he may interrupt, or be rude, or take credit for things that weren’t his ideas, he’s still just a person muddling through life (albeit poorly) trying to do the best he can with what he’s got.

The book encourages us to start by giving ourselves an A – setting down all the comparisons we make that leave us feeling inadequate. Giving yourself an A means letting go of not good enough and honoring all the ways you do show up and contribute to the world around you. 

Giving other people an A means letting go of the judgment and resentment and “shoulds” that keep us feeling both superior and disconnected. We can’t hold anyone in compassion and judgment at the same time. And focusing on all the ways that someone doesn’t measure up to our (arbitrary!) standards, is just handing over a tremendous amount of headspace that could be better allocated to things that bring us joy.

So, the next time somebody drives you bananas by not acting right, consider that they probably weren’t doing it AT you. They probably didn’t set out trying to ruin your day. 

Most folks don’t wake up in the morning planning on how they might be a jerk to the people around them. People just get caught up in their own needs and drama and then can’t see how their behavior impacts others.

When the next person cuts you off in traffic or is speeding like a maniac, you can choose to let it piss you off and spend the rest of your commute fuming, or you can consider that maybe that guy just really needs to poop? I can definitely find compassion for someone who’s trying not to shit their pants. Nobody wants that.