Lifestyle Choices

Bridging distance

When you feel negative about, distant from, or angry with somebody, do not start by assuming that you do not like him, thereby giving yourself a reason to sever contact or keep your distance. Begin by asking yourself about your own intent and your part in the distance or the bad feeling. Answer yourself as honestly as you can. Here are some possibilities:

* Your friend has done something that you are annoyed about and you have failed to tell him. As soon as you do say something about it the barrier between you usually goes, and you realize that there has been no intentional wrong.

* You are jealous of your friend who has a quality, a possession or a relationship which you do not have. Because you judge your own jealousy as bad, you do not say anything and the distance grows. Many friendships get broken in this way. The problem is not the jealousy, but the judgement that jealousy is bad. Jealousy (like practically everything else) can be used positively or negatively. The negative side is to plot to destroy the success of another, to say in effect: “If I don’t have it, you won’t either.” The positive side is to achieve your own success in your own way, to say in effect: “Well, if you have that, I am going to make sure I have something good for myself too.” Jealousy spoken positively is nothing more than a compliment: “I really envy your family (friends, success etc.).” The honesty to admit you are jealous can give a relationship a little more depth and trust.

* Seeing your friend using his talents fully reminds you that you are not doing what you are capable of. Since you may not want to be reminded of this, an easy answer is to have contact only with people who make the same or less use of their talents than you.

* You have done something to your friend which you feel bad about and you are reluctant to face your own guilt. However, the guilt will never go without action. It is a long-term emotional economy to admit your mistake, apologize or take action to reverse your error, which is nearly always worth the short-term cost in pride.

* Your friend has an aspect of his character that you find off-putting, because it reminds you of a characteristic in yourself. It is often difficult to be aware of this and somehow so much easier to see the faults or strengths of another and to remain ignorant of our own. If you realize that you have the same characteristic as your friend your negative feeling towards him may suddenly drop into perspective.

* You are to some extent paranoid. Paranoia in the extreme sense of believing people are plotting against you or pumping poisonous gas through your floorboards is uncommon. Common everyday paranoia is a particular flavour of egotism which assumes that other people are more concerned about what you are doing than they actually are. Perhaps you walk into a room full of people who are busy. “Hello,” you saycheerfully. No-one is very interested in your entry and all you receive is a couple of low-energy grunts of acknowledgment. It is easy to start thinking in this situation: “Have I done something wrong?” This thought may be quickly overtaken by the rationalization: “Oh, they must be busy”, but somehow the doubts linger in the background of your mind. The logical presumption in these fleeting suspicions is that the primary reason for something going on (or not going on) between you and others must be related to you rather than theothers. Paranoia often creates its own self-fulfilling prophecy. ‘Me Once you are suspicious of other people’s motives or feelingsfor you, your distance and your own aggrieved feeling will be perceived (more or less consciously) by those others, who will naturally react by being wary of you or more distant fromyou. On perceiving their distance, you can then say to yourself “Ah, I was right to be suspicious of them,” and so the distance grows.

Reducing paranoia

There are a number of practical steps you can take to reduce the distance of paranoia:

• Make the willful decision to assume that others are acting out of the best intentions. Even if you are wrong (in otherwords your paranoid suspicions were right), your assumption of the best in others will often bring out the best in them.
• Check it out. If you think someone doesn’t like you, ask. Since this can be rather embarrassing as a bald question, a bit of humour may help. You walk into the room of busy people and get no reaction; so you say with humour “What’s wrong, don’t you like me any more?” If they say absolutely nothing your paranoia was probably accurate. More than likely, though, someone will say “Of course we like you, but we’re busy, you dummy!” In seconds, your suspicions have evaporated: paranoia disappears with human contact.
• Check it out indirectly by making contact (rather than maintaining the distance). Instead of saying nothing and feeling bad talk to the person you are suspicious of. Find any way to remake contact, and imaginary suspicions will fade inthe light of reality.

After questioning yourself or having more awareness of yourself, you still may, after all, not like somebody. You may be right not to trust somebody and keeping your distance may be the most positive thing you can do.

Dealing with the past

If negative feelings keep arising with particular kinds of past people, by the statistics of chance the problem is more likelyto be yours than theirs. There may be reasons from your past experiences which are interfering with the present. If such unsatisfactory “repeats” keep occurring in your life, consider exploring the reasons.

Finding your own balance

Many of the above points about creative expression do notbalance apply to the psychopath who seeks power at all costs or to those whose main problem is with controlling anti-social behaviour. In the end, there are no absolute rules. It is up to each person to find his or her own balance.

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