Peace with People: Introduction

Yama: Ahimsa—non-harming, kindness. My definition for the experiment was more focused on patience, goodwill, and respect for people who annoy me.

Main Issue—Thoughtless People: I don’t physically harm people, but I certainly feel impatience and disdain for those who are inconsiderate about the impact of their actions on the people around them. It almost seems that people are sometimes fully oblivious to the fact that they do not live in a bubble and that their actions can negatively affect the other people/animals/etc. who share this earth with them. My reaction to thoughtless people is twofold, neither of which is particularly helpful: harming myself (getting fiercely angry and stressed because there is no solution/recourse to the insensitive person’s actions) or harming the perpetrator by way of verbal condescension.

Goal: I wanted to understand better why people act the way they do—the true nature or impetus behind their actions—believing it may somehow help me accept or at least appreciate the complexity of decisions made by people in today’s world. Inconsiderate actions will never fully cease, so I was hoping to find a way to be ok with them recurring in daily life—largely through a change in my own attitude. In order to do so, I needed to witness the situations that caused my anger and take a minute to step back and assess the situation with some dispassion before reacting.