Are We Nice Enough To Each Other? Find Out How to be Loved by Many

Have you ever wondered how to get people to like you – AND keep it that way? It sounds like a very difficult thing to achieve. In fact, on the contrary it is very easy and simple once you come to realise a few ideas, and mull over them until they become a part of your being. In school we are not taught about life issues and are left to fend for ourselves and figure things out the hard way.

There is only way to get people to love you and that is to be genuine. You probably have tried one or more of the following:

1. Buy them expensive gifts, or do things for them such as driving them around or preparing them meals.

2. Giving them money.

3. Keeping quiet while they make all the decisions about what to do and where to go when going out with them.

4. Say things that you do not really mean such as telling them you are a fan of a particular TV program or a particular pop song.

5. Listening and agreeing when they are gossiping about another person.

6. Accepting it when they treat you unfairly or put you down.

You have probably seen that this does not work. Do not keep trying what does not work and expecting different results – all it does is take away self esteem and zaps you of energy. All these efforts may temporarily keep them in your life, but you are only being used as a doormat. This does not mean that the person is “bad”. Expecting people to be perfect is not the way to go either; otherwise you will end up lonely. People do show their negative side to you when you allow them; it is only human nature. What you must do is bring out the good side of them and do not accept their “bad” behaviour. Not accepting this bad behaviour simply means letting them know in some gentle way. When you do this, they will begin to respect you. After all, have you ever respected someone who mistreats you or who allows you to treat them as a doormat?

If you suffer from low self esteem, anger or shyness then you will need to address these issues alongside working on your relationships.

The other side to being a submissive person is one that is dominant. This will never get you love and friendship. This is an obvious statement; but many people treat others that way despite the loneliness they encounter. This is simply because they have not found a way to change their habits and thought processes of a lifetime. Many do not even realise they are creating their own misery in their lives by alienating themselves from others. Just think on this; have you ever wanted to be around anyone (from your heart) who dominates you? No, of course not. It makes you feel like you are not valued or loved.

How do we change how we look at someone who makes you feel uncomfortable or someone who may have hurt you in the past? Before you approach them, repeat in your mind a few times “he/she is only human like me”. Also, remind yourself that whatever they did to make you feel uncomfortable or hurt is only a reaction to their own insecurities. They most likely did not mean it. Try to adopt a forgiving nature (after all, you would want people to forgive you for things you may have mistakenly done or said). Be forgiving to yourself when you cannot be forgiving. Move on and keep trying; it will eventually become second nature.

So why not try these steps with someone at your workplace or at your next social event or just someone you see when you are at the shops etc.

1. Smile the most wonderful smile you can from deep within your heart.
2. Say “hello”, “how are you?”. Maybe talk about something that you are interested in. Maybe a program you have seen on television or a book you are reading. Or perhaps take the opportunity to ask them something about work if it is a colleague (people respond well when you ask them for help).

Once you have made contact, try to do this whenever you have an opportunity. Do not make this a chore - enjoy it. You will find the enjoyment when you talk about something you are interested in and listen to what they have to say.

Take a look at your friends. Are you being submissive or dominant in your relationships? If you are, then you need to make changes:

1. Make regular efforts with your friends. Call them for chats and/or arrange to meet. This should be a two way street. If they do not reciprocate then it may be time to re-evaluate whether the relationship is worth it.

2. Be happy when you talk or see them. Even if you are feeling sad about something, make that first sentence energetic and you will automatically feel better.

3. If you want to talk to close friends about problems, try to not to keep complaining about other people to them. It does not help your problem and you will only wear them down.

4. Do not talk in too much detail about the same things. I have a friend who discusses in so much detail about her work (the name of her colleague, description of colleague, complaining about colleague, what she made for lunch, etc.) and I end up feeling fatigued! THINK about what you are saying to the person. Think about the point you are making and work towards that.

5. Stop to allow your friend to talk about something or comment on what you are saying.

6. Do not take advantage of your friends’ kindness, i.e. Letting them pay all the time, letting them drive you around, letting them cook for you all the time etc. Share the burden with them.

7. Be yourself. If you have to disagree with them, then say so, even if time has lapsed since the event. If you don’t, then eventually you will hold a grudge. Encourage them to be honest with you, and when they do, just listen and then make your point if you need to.

8. Treat your friends with respect. Do not cancel on them because something “better” has come up.

9. There is no right or wrong. Do not try and make them think they are wrong about choices they make or opinions they have.

10. Get into the habit of being genuine. Do not say or do things because you want something in return. People always pick up on non genuine people.

11. Do not let them make you feel bad for something you did or did not do. For example, if you request that you would like to pay for what you ate rather than split the bill in half (because your friend’s bill may be a lot more ), then do not let them make you feel guilty for it. It is your prerogative.

12. If you are making an effort but your friend still abuses the relationship, then it is time to think about whether you should end it.

This article is by no means exhaustive. Once you have started to put these ideas into practice, then you may realise other habits you want to change. Keep going, this will be an ongoing evaluation of your relationships, and you will notice yourself feeling happier, growing self esteem and feeling peaceful.

An inspiring film to watch is “Pay it forward” with Haley Joel Osment. It is about a boy who is influenced by his teacher (Kevin Spacey) to come up with an idea to make the world a better place. He comes up with the idea of helping three people in some way in which they would otherwise have not been able to do themselves, each of who then does something big for three others and so on. The idea being that the number of people receiving this help would grow rapidly.

It does not cost anything to be nice to people we meet and there is a lot to be gained. More people will want to be around you and love you, and you will find your popularity growing. However, being nice just to gain popularity is not the right way to go. People will see right through you. Be nice because you want to be. When you consciously start to make an effort to be nice, it then becomes easier to do because it becomes a part of who you are.

The Art of a Successful Marriage

Why do so many marriages fail these days (according to the media) ? This really depends I think on whether marriages were really ever that successful in the first place. We do not really know whether people stayed together because the couple were so happy or whether they just stuck together because society expected them to. I suspect the latter. From what I see of my grandparents, I feel that they were unhappy. My mother’s father did beat his wife. My father’s mother seemed to have her husband wrapped round her little finger. Needless to say, neither is a good basis for a happy marriage! When I met my husband, he adored me. But then he started to emotionally abuse me, constantly putting me down about everything I said and did and how I looked. None of my friends, who are married are happy, although most are still together. Discussions of divorce have cropped up in almost all of them. I used to think that marriage was the way to go having been brought up that way, but now I am unsure about it.

However it is human nature to want that level of commitment with someone and marriage is probably here to stay. Having been married myself, I have thoughts about what can make a marriage work. I watched the movie “To Sir With Love” starring Sidney Poitier (a fantastic actor I might add!) It is a very moving and inspirational film about a teacher who tries to educate a class full of undisciplined students about life. I think teaching about real life is seriously lacking in our schools, but that is another topic! In one scene, the teacher (Sir) has a discussion with the students about marriage and he states “Marriage is not for the weak, selfish or insecure”. I found this very poignant because it is very accurate indeed. If you are weak, then your partner can take advantage of you. If you are insecure then it can destroy the trust. If you are selfish, well….that is self explanatory.

I do think we are missing something. With the long women’s movement for equality, we have lost the respect for the other sex and no longer see the beautiful differences between men and women as God intended. Man sees the modern woman as a threat to their masculinity and women hide their true selves to avoid being vulnerable and subsequently hurt. Yet to avoid this happening is very simple indeed. In “To Sir With Love”, Sir teaches the men to respect the women while addressing them as Ms [surname] and he teaches the men to be men, acting respectable and courteous. When the men acted that way, the women opened up with love. This all sounds very 19^th century I know, but isn’t common courtesy what we all want? Men want to be needed by their woman and women want to be adored by their man. We are lacking the ability to accept qualities in the opposite sex, instead seeing it as a flaw. For example, I was always very house proud, but my husband took a disliking to it and criticized me for it. If he had thought, “what is the alternative? An empty house and no one to look after it”, then he might have looked at it very differently. I would get upset when my husband was at home but “not all there” (yes – I can hear the sigh from the female readers – sounds familiar right?). But if I had been grateful that he was home with me, then there would have been less arguments and I would have had peace of mind.

How do we apply all this in practice? Well, I think perhaps we are half way there when we start to realise that we are not appreciating what we have. After that it is a matter of constantly revaluating what is going on in our lives and attempting to change it. When we fail to change our attitudes, it is important to be kind to ourselves and keep going. At some point, you will realise that your attitude is changing and you start to feel more in control. I am experiencing this and can vouch for it. When you feel more in control, you feel more secure in yourself.

Of course, you may be successfully changing the way you see things, but your partner does not reciprocate. At this point, it may be wise to think about whether this is the kind of life you want. It is important to remember, you cannot change others, only yourself.

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” – meaning don’t rely on one part of your life to make you happy. If you have many outlets in your life, then if you lose one, you always have the others to lean on. Value other people and activities in your life. My brothers after getting married show little respect and appreciation for the rest of the family, thinking they don’t need it. In the end, you will always need all your family and friends. I found a thread on a forum discussing marriage and someone said “The family unit is very selfish when compared to the community unit.
It seeks material benefits only for itself. But ignores the community in general.
The community unit where there are no defined families, but people grow up in groups is more open and people friendly.” This is very true, however I think we can still achieve the community spirit without sacrificing marriage. Simply don’t forget to make gestures and effort with parents, siblings, in-laws and friends. When you have all these precious people around you, you will be well on the way to happiness. Of course, there will be situations where no matter the effort you make, you cannot get along with them. I will discuss this in future posts.

My First Blog Entry

I am very excited about this blog and I hope it turns out to be as good as I imagine. I am writing this because I have been very keen for a while now to publish a website where I can inspire others in this journey called life. We have all come to this special place on earth to experience a joyful journey and I believe we can all help each other to live it the best we can. I also wanted to share a little about my experience with breast cancer. Rather than make this blog all about the cancer, I decided to mix it up with my thoughts and ideas about how I want my life to be. Much of these ideas are based on the challenges I have faced in my life and some from the experiences of friends and family. I believe that much is to be learned from the material around us, such as movies, TV shows, books, what people say to us etc. These are valuable tools which we can draw on to make our lives the happiest that we can. The book “Conversations With God” by Neale Donald Walsch is about a man who claims that he had talked to God and records it in the book (sounds crazy – but the book is amazing with such inspiring ideas). Neale talks about how God says that he sends messages to us through these materials (i.e. movies etc.) and all we have to do is open our eyes and take notice. Ever since I read that, I take even more notice and learn from the media that inspired me. Needless to say I will be referring to them in my writings.