On People

A few weeks ago, someone asked me what my passion in life was. I instantly replied “People”. I did not take me even a moment to answer that question and I am not the least bit surprised with myself. But, all my life I have always approached people as those from whom I can learn. Learn, so that I can know how to deal with them. I always tried to understand why people behaved the way they did. And obviously, I have always been surprised at what I understood of people. Similar people react differently to different situations. The same people react differently to similar situations at two different times. The scientific reason for the former would be genetics and the later may be called as evolution. But that’s beside the point. I never could grasp either of those.
What I have come to understand is the mix of the heart, the mind and the subconscious that leads to people behaving they do. The answer I always try and seek is which one of these is the dominant factor when an individual reacts the way she does. I never made a conscious effort to develop my thought process in that manner. However, over time I realized that trying to understand people with that perspective made me comfortable with myself. It helped me in rationalizing reactions which I did not understand. I got around to making peace with people’s extreme reaction (extreme as per my judgement and not necessarily according to what the general perception). I call myself an individualistic. However, the fact that I have chosen to live in a social setting, I consider it my duty (to myself) to live in harmony with people around me. Understanding them and being able to relate to gives me a satisfaction that I am at least doing one part of my job as an individual.
Theoretically, to me this sounds very simple. However, as always, the process of applying this process of understanding people can be a very painful one. In my opinion people can sometimes be a bundle of unanswered questions. You can use up all kinds of adjectives that you may want to in order to describe them and you will still come out with more and then you will be left wordless but still may not understand them (seriously, no gender bias here!). Not being able to understand the reason’s for change in people’s attitude and behaviour, especially the ones you consider close can be extremely frustrating. It is here that two kinds of action might help. The first one is talking to the individual concerned. Unfortunately, there are occasions when this is easier said than done. The alternative here which has helped me always is “rationalization”. This is about putting oneself in the situation of the other person and trying to understand why the person is doing what she is doing. Doing this requires making rational assumptions with an unbiased mindset and Boom! you just find the answer. It is not about denial or meek acceptance. It would be so if the answer disturbs you and you feel something is wrong somewhere and you choose not to do anything about it. It is about reaching a point where something can be done. Rationalization helps understand the person and the situation better in order to do something (if at all that is) in a manner which is helpful to all concerned.
In the end, it is about making peace with oneself. If behaviour of people disturbs you, either you can choose to ignore them and keep cribbing or do something about it. I have always gone for the second option. Sometimes later than sooner, but have always done so. It just makes life so much simpler.