On dealing with assholes…
Summary:
When dealing with idiots or fools, avoid engaging in conflict.
if you get into an argument with an irrational person, there are now two irrational people in the room.
Instead, view their behavior as you would that of angry children or misbehaving pets, understanding that it is simply their nature and should not affect your mental balance.
People often act out due to upbringing or conditioning, and sometimes we must remind ourselves that we too can be annoying to others.
Anger, if allowed to take over, can lead to unnecessary drama and problems, so it’s important to pause before reacting.
Assume ignorance rather than malevolence, as most people act out of mistaken beliefs, not intentional harm.
As Marcus Aurelius said, why get angry at ignorance, much like we wouldn’t get mad at someone for lacking abilities beyond their control?
If someone insults us, we should ask ourselves whether their words hold truth, whether they are motivated by insecurity, or if their behavior is simply a projection of their own flaws.
Often, our emotional reactions to others reflect our own internal insecurities and judgments. We should aim to respond with calm, avoiding impulse reactions, as engaging with anger only fuels conflict.
It’s better to practice empathy, remembering that people often don’t act maliciously but simply don’t know better.
Pausing before reacting, accepting that some things are beyond our control, and choosing not to engage in petty conflicts helps preserve inner peace and emotional strength.
Ultimately, it’s not the insults or actions of others that harm us, but our reaction to them.
By learning to detach emotionally and viewing others with understanding, we maintain our serenity, showing greater strength than those who provoke us
Aphorisms
Sometimes people can’t help how they act do to upbringing and conditioning.
If you ever find yourself getting annoyed by your friends or coworkers, try to remind yourself that you are annoying to other people sometimes too.
What’s done in anger can be the source of one’s undoing or at minimum, a source of headaches and drama and needless problems.
Which is why we must pause, before anger gets the best of us.
Assume ignorance before malevolence!
“Why is their ignorance maddening you? Would you get mad at a blind person for not being able to see? a deaf person for not being able to hear? a lame person for not being able to walk...? So why are you getting mad at an ignorant person for being ignorant?”
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.13
“If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.”
~ Schopenhauer, On The Primacy Of The Will In Self-Consciousness', The World as Will and Representation Volume 2 (1844)
You have empathy when you meet someone with a handicapped body, why not hold that same empathy for those with a handicapped mind?
Such cruel harshness should be blamed on the judge rather than the fault.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
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“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part yourself. What isn’t part ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
~ Hermann Hesse
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
~ Carl Jung
Assume ignorance over malevolence. It is not intent that causes most assholeisness. Most people are just mistaken or misguided and doing what they think is best for them (including yourself) when you think they are doing ‘wrong’. In their own minds, the ‘wrong’ they are doing is what they think is truly right. See them as ignorant children and there is no anger...if anything there is pity. It is best to be more tolerant. Nobody was born evil.
The deepest insults are the ones that you believe to be true within your own mind. Those are your insecurities.
Your emotional reaction – be it irritation, anger or hatred – to perceived weaknesses in others reflects something going on inside of us.
Anger comes up as a warning which at times can be valuable as that flush of anger can alert us to a violation of our values, a feeling of danger, or a sense of neglect.
We feel angry when we feel there’s an obstacle that is impeding us, an impediment to the will to power.
Anger can also derive from emotions that shake us up, like shame, humiliation or the feeling of being unappreciated.
At other times, anger can be set off when we sense a threat to our identity, when our beliefs or values are under attack.
However anger is often a psychological response of projecting our own insecurities, flaws and weaknesses onto others…and vise versa!
When we strongly judge someone else to be rude, selfish or stupid, we may, in fact, be doing so in order to avoid confronting these characteristics in ourselves.
It is not the person or the behavior which bothers us, but our reaction to it. We can use this reaction as a tool for self-reflection, to find out why this hatred and irritation exists.
If you let yourself get angered or upset by a barking dog, you have only yourself to blame.
Never blame a clown for acting like a clown. Ask why you keep going to the circus.
A battle avoided is a battle won.
“There is no more visible sign of a person’s success on the path of goodness than when he restrains his anger and refuses to repay an unkind word with an unkind word, or refuses to strike back at a person who’s offended him.”
~ Tolstoy
Meekness is not weakness, it is power contained.
People can only insult their perception of you. It's important to remember that how people see you is based on their view of you not who you actually are.
Seek to shrug perceived insults off if you want to stay mentally, emotionally and perhaps even physically well.
“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.
Before you do anything out of anger, pause. Let it stay. Say the alphabet before reacting.”
~ Bruce Lee
“Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”
~ Epictetus
Try to remember that the anger lies in YOU because you still believe that someone or something the power over your emotional wellbeing. No-one or no-thing can ‘make’ you angry, sad or happy for that matter…you ‘become’ angry or sad because of your conditioning (current state of consciousness) and attachment to the idea that anyone or anything can make you happy or upset.
However, in the long term, what you do doesn’t matter, what matters is what you don’t do.
Pause. Breathe. Assess.
An emotional response to a situation is generally a mistake that may cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings.
“There is a space between the stimulus and the response; in this space we have the choice of our response; and in this choice lies our evolution and our freedom.”
~Viktor Frankl
Use the brief separation between what happens to you and how you respond to remember that getting upset or angry or fearful is a decision…maybe a deeply ingrained, automatic initial response…but still your decisions act on it.
Do not engage.
Never show anger, ill temper, or vengefulness, all disruptive emotions that will make people defensive.
Welcome adversity as a chance to show the charming qualities of magnanimity and poise.
This act is a greater exhibition of the will to power than choosing aggression.
Exit stage left.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
~ Dr. Seuss
Ignore them. Perhaps no response is sufficient.
“The best answer to a fool is silence. Every word you speak to a fool bounces back to you. Repaying offense with offense is just putting more wood on the fire, but he who meets his offender with peace has already defeated him with peace itself.”
~ Tolstoy
Arguing with a fool proves there are two.
If walking away is not possible then choose to respond rather than react.
Pause. Don’t say the first thing that pops into your head.
Don’t meet anger with anger, fire with fire, tit for tat. Don’t charge in, throwing punches. Don’t act on impulse.
Words, arrows, and bullets...you can't call them back, use wisdom in your choices as if they are written in stone.
“If they are wise, do not quarrel with them; if they are fools, ignore them.”
~ Epictetus
It is said that one day the Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him, saying all kind of rude words.
The Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man, “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?”
The young man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, “It would belong to me, because I bought the gift.”
The Buddha smiled and said, “That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.”
Always remember you not required to accept every invitation to an argument.
Have the maturity to sometimes know that silence is more powerful than having the last word.
If you don’t respond, it's not an argument it’s just somebody is just running their mouth…a temper tantrum.
Learn to pick your battles wisely.
Some things just are not worth fighting.
“Don’t argue with fools; they just pull you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
~ Mark Twain
Don't wrestle with pigs. the pig likes it and you get all muddy.
Do not let words destroy your peace, as you will be unpleasantly surprised when you discover that everyone can speak.
“Don't feel harmed — and you haven't been.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
To argue with someone constructively, imagine what the other person is feeling and look at the problem through their eyes; you will be more likely to influence them. That doesn’t mean you need to agree.
We all love ourselves more than other people, but seem to care more about their opinion than our own.
Dealing with ‘insults’ or derogatory comments:
If we let ourselves get angered or upset by a barking dog, we have only ourselves to blame. Keep in mind that, like idiots and assholes, the dog, not being fully rational, cannot help itself.
When insulted, we should not insult back in return; we should instead carry on as if nothing had happened. It is an effective way to deal with many insults. On failing to provoke a rise in his target, an insulter is likely to feel foolish.
Ask yourself if the thing you feel offended by is truth or nonsense.
If it is truth, why be offended by the truth?
Remember that anything you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.
Thank them for the insight or realize they are pointing out the obvious and laugh them off.
If it is nonsense, why be offended by nonsense?
Pity them for their ignorance, shrug or, better still, laugh them off.
“When somebody provokes your anger, the only reason you get angry is because you’re holding on to how you think something is supposed to be. You’re denying how it is. Then you see it’s the expectations of your own mind that are creating your own hell. When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought it would be, examine the way you thought, not just the thing that frustrates you. You’ll see that a lot of your emotional suffering is created by your models of how you think the universe should be and your inability to allow it to be as it is.”
~Ram Dass
Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.
Being oppressed doesn’t necessarily make you good, any more than “might is right.”
Having been victimized doesn’t give you a pass.
Ask yourself:
1) Is there any truth in what they say? Probably there is a kernel of it in there somewhere, in which case it is an opportunity to take a lesson from the situation, perhaps to improve myself, otherwise;
2) Ask why are they saying this? Is there some ulterior motive? Is it jealousy? Is it just down to basic human tribal behaviour where factions arise at work and for some reason, they unify by denigrating me behind my back? If so, is there any reason I am their target, or am I simply the most convenient, perhaps the most visible, the most timid unlikely to retaliate?
3) Ultimately realize - it doesn't matter. Whether it's one reason or another, I cannot control what they say about me. Understanding why they might be doing it may make my ego feel better because I may come to understand it's probably not REALLY about me but about them, but other people should not have the power to destroy my inner peace with simple gossip. I can control only my own thoughts and actions, and I am only injured insofar as I decide I am injured.
We all have a background. We are all human. We all make mistakes. We are not perfect.
It helps to understand that almost all of the time, they're not mad at you personally, they're just mad.
Joining the fight will make them mad at you.
Not playing their anger game, and not even acknowledging there is a game being played works.
Once they realize you're not willing to play ball, they usually give up.
If they don't, just give a calm and dismissive look, and walk away.
Don't get sucked in.
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so, none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1
“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
~ Mary Shelley
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
~ Carl Jung
Until you know their reasons how do you know whether they have acted wrongly?
Try reframing:
That moron who cut you off on the highway…
What if he’s speeding to the hospital?
That crying baby…
Could be sick or have two parents who are just as exhausted as you.
The person who spoke rudely…
Might be dying or might have a broken heart.
The Stoics remind us to be empathetic. Almost no one does wrong on purpose, Socrates said. Maybe they just don’t know any better. Maybe, as Marcus said in the quote above, they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Which is why we have to stop ourselves before we get angry. We have to think about their reasons, what’s going on with them.
The Fundamental Attribution Error is a key concept in psychology where we judge others based on their actions but ourselves based on our intent.
If someone is annoying you or does something that you disagree with, remember that you can’t see inside their thoughts.
We’ve all been there: stuck in traffic, grumbling about the “idiot” driving too slowly in front of us or the “maniac” who just zoomed past. But what if that slow driver is carefully transporting a wedding cake or rushing someone to the hospital?
When you cut someone off in traffic, it’s because you were being absentminded or because you’re late to sing lullabies to your newborn, right? But when someone cuts YOU off, it’s because they’re not good. You don’t know their inner thoughts, just the result of their actions in the world.
Take it easy on your fellow people and try to remember the fundamental attribution error.
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
~ Epictetus
If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumors; respond instead with, ‘Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more’.
~ Epictetus, Enchiridion 33.9
Strength and confidence have nothing to prove.
Weakness leads to anger.
Anger leads to resentment.
Resentment leads to suffering.
To hate is to acknowledge our inferiority and our fear; we do not hate a foe whom we are confident we can overcome.
The man who insults me becomes my training partner; he trains me in patience, in abstaining from anger, in remaining gentle. I'll turn it all into a source of happiness.
This advice follows from the practice of dividing the things in our life into two categories: those we can control and those we can’t. We can’t control whether other people insult us. We can very much control, though, how we respond to those insults, and in particular, we can respond in a way that minimizes the harm they do us.
“Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves — that is, our opinions do. What, for instance, does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?”
~ Epictetus, Discourses I, 25.28–29
The intentions and utterances of other people are outside of our control, but our reaction to such utterances is very much under our control, and one way to handle insults is the one that Epictetus counsels: behave like a stone…be a rock.
“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
~ Winston S. Churchill
Whether they are assholes or not, however, is not in your control. So you shouldn’t worry about it.
“It is circumstances which show men what they are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like the trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. “For what purpose?” you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.”
~ Epictetus, Discourses
The person insulting you is providing you a benefit!
And what advantage does a wrestler gain from his training partner? The greatest. And that man, too, who insults me becomes my training partner; he trains me in patience, in abstaining from anger, in remaining gentle … And yet you say that if someone trains me in abstaining from anger, he brings me no benefit? It is simply that you don’t know how to draw advantage from other people.
When you lose your temper with someone who is rude, or unkind, do not think of them as an enemy. Think of them as a training partner in the character gym. They will push you, test your limits, and show you where you need to improve.
Being mad is a reaction.
Anger is a state of mind.
The former is outside our control.
The latter is something we choose—a weakness we give into and accept.
Treat people like animals or children and turn irritation to empathy
Don’t get upset with assholes, feel pity for them. They are fighting their own internal demons.
Whenever somebody wrongs you, ask yourself at once ‘What conception of good and evil led him to commit such a wrong?’ And when you see that, you will pity him, and feel neither surprise nor anger.
This does not necessarily mean be passive in the face of being wronged, but anger should have nothing to do with the response.
If some succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.
Ignore them.
Response to verbal provocation:
“Your opinion is valid but irrelevant.”
“I acknowledge your ignorance.”
“Sir, it is improbable that you are not mistaken; but why insist on truth?”
“Thanks for giving me the opportunity to practice patience, understanding and sympathy.”
“Your shallowness has no bottom.”
“Bless your heart.”
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
~ Lao Tzu
Can they make us upset? Not according to the Stoics.
“If someone succeeds in provoking you,” Epictetus said, “realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”
He meant that whatever the other person did is on them. Whatever your reaction is to their remark or action, that’s on you. No one can make you angry, only you have that power. Someone can certainly say something offensive or stupid or mean, but no one can make you upset—that’s a choice.
This is worth remembering always. You shouldn’t give away your power over yourself. You shouldn’t let others bait you. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be provoked. But most of all, you can’t blame them if that happens.
Because you control you, nobody else.