Do you think a more trite title could have been used? If the title sounds a bit like Barbra Streisand’s extremely popular song, “People”, from the distant past then the similarities are entirely accidental. This phrase is one of those ‘givens’ that we don’t think about that much. Mistake. People populate our lives in so many ways and impact on our decision making – both good and bad. And if that last statement sounded somewhat ‘duh’-ish I suppose it’s true. But how we ‘treat’ people does makes a statement.
When you think about it… how do people figure in your life? A very basic question is: how do you value people? Are others to be merely tolerated, are they to be ‘used’, encouraged, involved, etc.? Do you even want others to impact your life? If your answer to this last question is a resounding ‘no’ then I suggest you either rethink your stand or decide to become a hermit because as long as there are people around you, they will impact your life.
You have to admit that people enrich our lives. People bring to us new ways of thinking, ideas we may not have previously considered, and so many other considerations. To me, the question really is us – how we interact with others, how we touch and allow ourselves to be touched by others. There are so many factors that determine how we react, primarily based in our experiences. But we can’t use experience as our excuse for treating others badly – what was is not always what is or what should be.
I really do like people… though I may not be all that enamored with what they do and say. Then again, I’m not always enamored with what I do and say. I do believe that we all should react to one another based on the Golden Rule. But I also believe that even if others don’t treat me this way, I need to react to them based on my standard. Lashing out simply because I was lashed out at rarely accomplishes more than escalating the situation. We don’t know why they reacted in that way… perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Yes?
