How to Deal With Difficult People According to Stoicism
Learn to love (or endure) your fellow humans.
As you go through life, you will encounter difficult people. These interactions can be incredibly frustrating. And you’ll likely find yourself wishing that you could change these people.
You might even try to do it. But if you do, you’ll inevitably find that it’s a waste of time. No matter how badly you want to, you simply cannot control how others behave.
What you can control, however, is your own response to these people. You can choose how you want to perceive them. And you can decide how you want to respond in their presence. And by doing that, you can learn to tolerate — and even appreciate — the challenging people that cross your path.
Here are the Stoic’s best techniques for dealing with difficult people.
1. Reset Your Expectations
‘When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.’ — Marcus Aurelius
Imagine that you’re going for a walk on a path in the forest. Suddenly, someone dressed in a bear…
