The Bad Apples

When Dale Carnegie wrote his classic book on human relations, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he left out a chapter; it wasn’t finished on time, so the book was published without it. The chapter was supposed to cover the subject of dealing with people you cannot win with.

For most people, when you treat them fairly, they treat you fairly in return. But as you know, there exists in this world a small percentage of people who will simply take advantage of you when you try to treat them fairly. There are people who will play games with you, deceive you, and some who will actively prevent you from making your relationship work. Carnegie’s unwritten chapter was for the times when “somebody has to go to jail, be spanked, divorced, knocked down, sued in court.”

Even beyond those extreme cases, every once in awhile you’ll get stuck working with or having to interact with someone who continually brings you down or in some way makes your life difficult. They may seem to be very nice people. They might smile and come across with a lot of charm. But the end result of your interactions are: You’re worse off. You try to make things work, you try to be fair, and you get the short end of the stick every time. You’ve tried to talk with them, perhaps, and it doesn’t make things better, and they probably make you feel bad for saying anything.

I have no fancy methods for dealing with these people. You can’t really deal with them. If they’re doing something illegal, you can certainly call the police, but most are too clever to do something illegal. My wife uses a good analogy in her speeches. She says trying to make things work with these people is like trying to wrestle with someone who is covered with mud: You’re going to get muddy. No matter what you do or how well you do it or how noble your intentions, you’ll get muddy.

So instead of trying to make things work out with these people, the goal is to avoid dealing with them at all. Go for minimal impact. Have as little to do with them as you can get away with (without causing yourself trouble). Ideally, you would eliminate them from your life completely. Stop calling, stop visiting, stop being nice. You don’t have to be mean about it. Just fade them into the background and then all the way out of the picture.

I know this isn’t a perfect world. Sometimes you’ll have to keep interacting with someone who won’t let you make things work. So go as far as you can to minimize their effect on your life. Talk to them as little as you can, look at them as little as you can. Focus your attention on your purpose and on the rest of the people around you. When you come across someone and nothing works with him, cut your losses. Don’t waste any more effort trying. This is a big world full of wonderful people and a few bad apples. Concentrate your attention on the good people and waste as little of your attention as you can on the ones who bring you down. You can do it a little at a time and it will improve your attitude. And if it improves your attitude, it’s good for your relationships with your family and friends, and it’s good for your health.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

How to Use Self-Help Principles So They Make a Difference in Your Life

This web site is like a box full of tools. As you browse, you'll find out what tools are available in your box. You'll see tools you will want to use. But please do not make the mistake of thinking you should be using all these tools. It's an easy mistake to make because it is obvious that simply knowing about the tools doesn't lower your anxiety level very much or make you feel better or reduce your stress. It is using the tools that makes the difference.

But listen to me. If you had a large, well-stocked toolbox down in the basement, but at the moment you're sitting on the porch drinking lemonade, you wouldn't think you should be using those tools. You don't need any of those tools to sip lemonade.

Use the tools when you need them or when you really want to use them. Read these articles to become familiar with what's here. Then when you come to an stress-producing situation, you will know you have a tool that can handle the job.

Or you could wait until you need a tool and browse through the site until you find one that will work.

Also realize that you might use a particular tool only once every other year. In a regular toolbox, you'll have a few tools that you use only rarely — for very specific jobs that don't come up very often — but when you're doing one of those tasks, that tool is just the thing.

Some other tools are used often, like a screwdriver.

Same for the tools on this site. Some tools, like focusing on a purpose, will be in almost constant use. Others have only a specific application that may not come up very often.

Another way the toolbox analogy fits is that you usually only use one tool at a time. You don't use a saw and a hammer simultaneously. When you're hammering, that's the only tool you're using at the moment. The tools in this book are much the same. When you're relaxing tense muscles, just relax tense muscles. Don't try to simultaneously remind yourself of a slogan and alter the way you're interpreting the situation. Choose a good tool and apply it. And only it.


USE THE RIGHT TOOL

If you want to remove a bolt, do not use a screwdriver. Use a wrench. In the same way, each of the tools on this site is good for certain circumstances and not very good for others. For example, I had something troubling on my mind and I felt agitated. So I meditated. It didn't work at all. I was more agitated afterwards than before.

I needed to think things through, which is difficult to do while meditating. So I tried a different tool: I argued with myself on paper and that brought me complete relief.

If you want less reactivity in general, by all means meditate. If you have a problem getting rid of a thought about something that does not require any thought on your part — because you are just obsessing about something and no longer have any good reason to think about it — meditation will probably do the trick. Focusing on a challenging purpose would work also.

If you have several different things on your mind and need to sort things out, making a list will probably help you.

If you feel somewhat alienated from people, work on developing your charisma or the bond of friendship.

If you feel physically tense, soak in a hot tub or listen to a guided meditation or get a massage. Or exercise.

If you've been guzzling coffee or not getting enough sleep, you know what to do.

You get the idea. Use the right tool for the right job. As you can see, when you look at what your situation is, it's pretty easy to see what would be a good tool for the job. All you need to do is avoid saying "this is the best tool" and try to use it on everything. You wouldn't do that with a regular toolbox, would you? "I think this hammer is the best tool. So whatever I want to do, I'll use the hammer to accomplish it." You want to saw some wood, so you hammer and hammer, and eventually, get the plank into two pieces. Two ugly pieces. Then you need to make the boards level before you hammer them into place. How can you do that with a hammer?

Become familiar with the contents of your toolbox. Learn what each tool can do. And then when you want to manage some aspect of your life, deftly reach into your toolbox and apply the tool that will accomplish your purpose with the greatest effectiveness.

Adam Khan is the author of Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.

Tranquility First

Do you think it is possible to live your life as if tranquility were your first priority? Immediately you may think it's not practical. You would be ineffective. You wouldn't get anything done. You would become a wimp. But that's not so. That's a kind of thinking you have been given. You didn't carefully think that one through and come to that conclusion on your own. You haven't tried it first and discovered it didn't work. So for the moment, let's suspend our preconceived notions and explore this.

First, an analogy. When you are settling down for a plane flight, the attendant gives instructions on what to do in case of an emergency. One of the things they'll tell you is if you have an infant, you need to use the oxygen mask first. Then give your baby a breath on it. Why? Because that is the only way it will work. If you give one to your baby first, you might pass out, and if you are passed out, you could both die. You must stay alive and awake so you can keep your baby alive. It's just pure logic.

In the same way, it is pure logic that if you want to be happy and if you want the people around you to be happy, tranquility in your own bodymind must come first. Your own inner peace must come first because every interaction you have is strongly influenced by your inner state and your inner state radiates out to others and influences their inner states. No matter how well you control your facial muscles and body language and tone of voice, you cannot prevent your inner state from radiating out from you and affecting others.

But what about being ineffective in this dog-eat-dog world? What will happen if you have tranquility as your first priority? You will still get things done. But you will do your work with the purpose of maintaining and deepening the tranquility. So the main purpose of doing laundry, for example, is not to get the clothes clean or get it over quickly. The main intention while doing anything is to maintain or deepen the state of tranquility. It is done in whatever way will lead to peace.

I've tried this. It makes me move slower. I don't get quite as much done per hour. Aha! But wait. I also don't waste a lot of time on useless activities. And my actions are more thought-out because I'm not rushing from one thing to another without taking the time to think. So my actions are fewer but they're higher quality, and I'm happier. And the people around me are happier. It works. And it works better than the other way.

Just give it a try. In practical terms, this will mean that if you're tranquil at the moment, all you need to do is decide what to do next and do it with the purpose of deepening your inner peace. But if you're not tranquil at the moment, your only purpose is to become so. Meditation is a good first choice. If you can't meditate at the moment, take a deep breath, relax any tense muscles you have, and think about your situation in a way that produces tranquility.

Maintain the clarity (with continual reinforcement) that living in tranquility is your top priority and focus. Even above success or helping others. Then go about your business working toward success and helping others in the spirit of maintaining your tranquility while doing so.

The Buddha said something well worth thinking about. He was a teacher, giving public discourses in many different places, and people would often ask him about whether or not God exists or whether the universe had a beginning or has always existed. Buddha didn't answer these questions. He said that speculating about these questions doesn't help you attain inner peace.

That's an interesting point of view, don't you think? I mean, if anyone asked me my opinion about anything, I would be glad to give it. But maybe that attitude isn't very helpful if what I want to attain is a deep calm.

When I get into a discussion over these essentially unanswerable questions, I get worked up. Inevitably. Opinions get thrown about with some degree of certainty and disagreements are bound to pop up. You can argue and debate endlessly on these questions and never really get anywhere. Meanwhile, you've agitated yourself. You have not only not moved toward peace and freedom, you have moved away.

But it is not just these questions that are worth looking at. Look at the point of view Buddha is in. He is interested in doing only what leads to tranquility. Imagine what your life would be like if that was your criteria. What if when you were trying to decide on something you did whatever leads to serenity?

What if the underlying purpose in everything you did was to develop or maintain or deepen a state of tranquility? What if you went through your normal day, doing your normal work, but with the small added intention that tranquility comes first? I think you can see it might be worth a try.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.

Episode 30, How Long Can Someone Fast Before They Die?

This is a short excerpt of a much longer podcast (called What's So Great About Fasting?). This excerpt looks at some of the recorded extremes of fasting duration.

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