How to Stop Toxic People from Infecting Your Life
You Can’t Escape Them, But You CAN Disarm Their Effect
From bosses and fellow employees to random people crossing our path, we’ll never escape incivility — but we can choose how we’ll react, and that will make all the difference in the world.
Several years ago, I came across a wonderful story by Sydney Harris that beautifully illustrated how we should treat toxic people … for our own good.
I walked with my friend, a Quaker, to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the newsie politely. The newsie didn’t even acknowledge it.
A sullen fellow, isn’t he? I commented.
Oh, he’s always that way every night, shrugged my friend.
Then why do you continue being so polite to him? I asked.
Why not? Inquired my friend. Why should I let him decide how I’m going to act?
As I thought about this little incident later, it occurred to me that the operating word was act. My friend acts toward people; most of us react toward them.
He has a sense of inner balance lacking in most of us frail and uncertain creatures: he knows who he is, what he stands for, and how he should behave.
