He is mean to me

If somebody feels that people are making fool of him or people are mean to him, the total fault is of the person himself and nobody else. Fault is not about doing something for people who do not value it or try to take advantage out of it. But fault is of doing something and feeling bad about it depending on the reactions of others.

It is true that we all expect people to respond properly for something done by us. It is very normal to feel bad when you know that people are taking advantage out of your generosity.

But first of all, let us see what we are doing? We feel like doing something. We feel like doing it because we wanted to do it. We do it. Now we should be happy about following our heart, about taking an action which WE wanted to take. But what we do - We try to get the acknowledgement from others. Nothing wrong in that. We should take reactions from people. But problem is it goes to the extent that our future actions become dependent on it? So if somebody gave a return smile, we will smile again, but if somebody didn’t, we will hate his face (many times we do not know what was the reason of him not smiling).

Similarly, many times we think that the other person is being mean to us. But it is always better to understand it completely before making interpretation. It is even better to talk it out. But we do not do that, we are more comfortable assuming things, than opening up and saying things as they are.

And it may be that person is trying to take undue advantage of us. but how can a person make us do something which we did not want to do? And if we wanted to do something, and he is taking advantage out of it, let him take. How are we bothered about it? If we feel that something should be done for the other, let’s not do it. But doing it and then cribbing – isn’t it fooling ourselves?

Another aspect of such cases is - it is not only that other people are mean in these cases, but many times person makes himself gullible to such things. He will have a self image of being good to others. He secures acceptability from doing things for others. Now even if he knows that other people are taking advantage of him, he will not have courage to come out and say 'this is enough'. He will continue doing that and will keep cribbing on the back. He will not break his image of being nice and will continue his goody things. He will not understand that by winning others acceptability he is losing self respect. Now if he does not have courage to follow his heart, how can he blame others? The people who support his goody actions, may seem like his friend but they make him even weaker. The reactions they get is rather a good trigger to know that you are following your heart and falling into other’s trap.

They say, if stone and glass crashes and glass breaks, it is not because of stone, but the nature of the glass. This may sound very rude, but it is the fact. This is not to support the mean actions of others. There is no doubt that we all should have gratitude to goodness done to us. But point is, we can’t go and change the world to react as what we wish. We can only work to become strong enough to face any foolish, stupid, mean or shrewd behaviour.

There are people who know what they are doing and are happy about it irrespective of what others say or do about it. They do their part, let people do their own. Everybody is free to do what he or she wishes. If we start bothering about reactions of others, we cannot move even a single step. Everybody has his own way of thinking.

Yes, it is difficult to do acts independent of other’s reactions. But this difficulty is just an illusion. Ask a person (or ask yourself), who has been spoiling his hours and days remembering other’s reactions. Ask him, by doing that what he has done to himself and his time. Is it not difficult to spend time like this? I think doing what we want to do and leaving reactions to other’s choices is much easier. It’s only a matter of knowing it.