What To Do When People Don’t Like You
People are not born with a desire to love and to be loved
People are not born with the desire to like and love others, or to be liked and loved by others.
A baby is born with no concept of acceptance and approval. Even their urge to survive is still inactive. Crying when hungry and uncomfortable is but only instinctive. When food and love don't come, baby will simply die.
Getting food and love, and becoming aware of those feelings of satisfaction after being fed, held and cleaned, is what triggers the desire to be liked and loved. Liking and loving in return is a natural response.
Feeling satisfied, or not satisfied, triggers the development of a personality
When we forget for a moment about genes, genetic memory and all those things that determine whether we are extroverts or introverts, and whether we would be able to stay normal in spite of our circumstances and environmental issues, we may assume that the feeling of satisfaction - or the lack of it - will determine the development of our personality.
A satisfied baby, is a happy baby, and they quickly learn how to obtain the things that make them feel satisfied and happy. They learn that it feels good to be liked and loved and bad when they are being neglected and/or ignored.
In normal circumstances they had developed a likeable and loveable personality by the age of seven. Sadly, by this time, some may had developed a dislikeable and unlovable personality, depending on the amount and quality of love and care they have received.
By the time baby is a teenager, he realizes that his efforts to obtain approval and love is not always successful. Even when he does his very best, certain people may still not like him. Coming to terms with this fact - that everybody is not able to like/love us, is most certainly not easy. Some teenager seek satisfaction in drugs, or in gangsterism, or they develop an obsession to master one or another skill that will compel people to like and love him. Some merely sink into depression.
By the time baby is an adult, he already reaps the fruit of whatever he had sown while he was a teenager. More likely than not, many are unsatisfied, as they had sown the seed of bitter fruit. However, the most are satisfied - their future looks great.
By now everyone knows that some people like/love them, and others don't, and they hope to find more people who will like and love them and less of the others.
What makes people like other people?
People are each other's mirrors. We see ourselves in others, and we actually like and love those in whom we see the best of ourself. We feel save in their company, we know that they are like us and not able to disappoint us. Of course, the disappointments will come, but that is beside the point.
When we take a good look at those we do not like, we'll see our own bad selves in them. We realize that we could have been exactly like them if we had developed our bad characteristics, inter alia rudeness, dishonesty, selfishness, etc. Sadly, some people never reach this stage where they are able to acknowledge that the bad they are able to see in others also exists in their own soul.
How do we deal with people who don’t like us?
We say: “Let them fly, I don’t care what they think and say about me.”
But on what chair do we sit when we say this?
On what chair are you sitting when you say this?
On the chair of a baby:
I am living in total ignorance with no clue what I need and not need. Some people do like me and do take care of me; they are doing what they are supposed to do.
On the chair of a child/teenager
I am doing my best, but they still don't like me. I have no idea what do to, so I don’t care. I know I will not die because they don’t like me, so I don’t care.
I think I don't care...
Let me rather indulge in the effects of drugs. If happiness doesn't come to me, at least I can feel happy while intoxicated...
Or perhaps I should join the gangsters. Let's punish the world because life sucks and nobody cares about me...
Or let's try harder. Practise more. Eat less. Sleep less. Achieve success that will make people love me...
On the chair of an adult:
I like and love myself, and I know enough people who feel the same about me. Why fret about one-two-three people who can't stand me? The fact that they don’t like me, is their problem - a problem I cannot solve. Staying out of their sight, is the best for all of us.
Thank heavens, I can control my feelings. I can smother all bad feelings by simply feeling grateful about all the good I may see, hear, feel and touch.
Relevant Quotes
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. -Mark Twain
Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got. -Janis Joplin
It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay. -Eric Hoffer
The proper time to influence the character of a child is about 100 years before he is born. -Dean William R. Inge
We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us. -Jean-Paul Sartre
A modest man is usually admired - if people ever hear of him. -Edgar Watson Howe
Every man has three characters - that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has. -Alphonse Kan
Every man has his follies - and often they are the most interesting things he has got. -Josh Billings
Character is like a tree, and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. -Anonymous
Every man in the world is better than some one else. And not as good as some one else. -William Saroyan
In Victorian times the purpose of life was to develop a personality once and for all and then stand on it. -Ashley Montagu
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- 10 Reasons Why People Don't Like You
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