Three People Not to Be

And One Person to Be

Here are three kinds of people not to be (and one kind of person to be).

The Smartest Person in the Room

I know. You’ve been told from the day you were born you were a genius, the next Einstein, a walking supercomputer. Or at least that you should try to be. Guess what?

There is no smartest person in the room. Wisdom is the insight that each of us has something to learn from any of us. Great wisdom is the insight that each of us has infinite things to learn from all of us. Living wisdom is the experience that each of us is always learning something new, fresh, vital, life-changing from every single person they meet.

There are many different kinds of intelligence. Maybe I’m the intellectually smartest person in a room. So what? All that really means is that I’m almost definitely not the most socially, emotionally, culturally, spiritually intelligent. Why? Because each of these is at odds with all the others. The nerd isn’t usually the natural politician. The politician isn’t the mystic. The mystic isn’t the healer. And so on. Nor should they be. We are all different, in that profound sense, and that is why really valuing people means that you never think of yourself as “the smartest”. What a burden that is.

Maybe you don’t think so. That’s probably because you’re trying to be the smartest person in the room. Look, I don’t blame you. My parents, counsellors, bosses, teachers, professors all drummed it into me. Always be that guy. If you’re not that guy, who are you? Nobody! But it never served me well. It never served me at all. It turned me into a self-righteous dick (of which the lingering traces are still self-evident). All it ever really did was prevent me from cultivating all the kinds of wisdom above until I almost died, but that’s another story.

There’s no upside to the false belief of being “the smartest person in the room”. None. Go ahead and think about it. Have you ever met anyone constantly trying to be the smartest person in the room that people genuinely like, respect, admire, value, love, embrace, follow? Nope. Real leadership takes a very different set of qualities: humility, kindness, compassion, acceptance. Then we are able to learn from, not just win over, people. And when we are willing to learn from people is when we truly bond with them.

Until we can, we’re not seeing them at all, are we?

The Most Sensitive Person in the Room

Then there’s this person. You know the one. Always trying to settle disputes, mediate, resolve, reconcile. They’re impossibly empathic, just, fair, noble, true.

That also makes them suffocating, smothering, narcissistic, interfering. Let people work out their disputes. When you take it upon yourself to play mediator, it might satisfy your ego in the short run — look how wonderful I am, I’m morally superior to these poor fallen beings — but it will backfire on you in the long run.

There will always be a dispute you can’t resolve. If your self-esteem is anchored in sensitivity, then not being able to resolve a dispute will leave you feeling worthless. There will always be disputes you shouldn’t resolve. You’ll step in to intercede, and suddenly, people will push you away. They should. You’re overstepping the mark. Take it too far, and you’ll develop a God Complex. And no one likes God much. Why do you think the faithful pray?

That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try to resolve differences now and then. When it’s vital to the functioning of an organization, or of a life, of course we should. But we shouldn’t be so sensitive that all we see is dispute, conflict, difference, and ever take it upon ourselves to resolve it.

Usually, this attitude comes from a place of conflict. You grew up with bickering parents, relatives, surrounded by tension. Maybe it became your job to broker the peace. Fair enough. But it shouldn’t have been. Just as today, it isn’t wise to constantly seek the very tension that you then imagine you have to defuse.

It’s another way of judging people, isn’t it? True sensitivity isn’t always seeing the flaws in people as faults. It’s seeing them for what they truly are. The tree is born from the seed. The seed is a tiny broken thing. Your greatest strengths will grow from your most broken places. Just go ahead and reflect on it. Your empathy will grow from your indifference. Your courage will grow from your anxiety and fear. Your compassion will grow from your hubris. It is that way because the broken things in you ache, and only what aches can grow.

That is why the moment that we try to “fix” people is the moment that we begin taking away their possibility. Don’t fix them. Just let them fall. And pick them up when they do, with gentleness and grace.

The Cruellest Person in the Room

Every room has one. The person who claims that the point of this organization, this labour, this effort, is to win. At all costs. The collateral damage be damned.

Again, I wouldn’t blame you. Cruelty’s drummed into us at every turn. Turn on the TV, endless spectacles of violence and conquest. Tap your screen, and it’s cynicism and derision as far as the Cyclopean eye can see. We’re not taught by anyone to be gentle, loving, and compassionate, because instead we are taught that cruelty is kindness, spite is compassion, and injustice is justice.

Maybe you think I take it too far. Do I? If I do, then why is everyone you and I know on antidepressants…in therapy…checked out of work…tapping their screens 24/7/265…trying to escape the mind-numbing pain of everyday life…in the richest societies in human history? There’s something a little bit wrong with the way we live, and I think that until we really accept it, we can’t quite resolve it.

The cruellest person in the room’s usually easy to spot. And if you don’t know who it is, it’s you. It’s not just the person who sneers, mocks, derides, taunts, mocks, backstabs, all in plain sight, usually with a smile. It’s the person who’s driving other people to, with little carrots of praise and sticks of condemnation. Cruel people make everything about oppositional strength and weakness, never understanding that strength is not the absence of weakness, but the presence of weakness, and weakness is not the end of strength, but the beginning of it.

We excuse them for it — although we’re getting better at not doing it — because we’ve normalized it. Mostly, though, these are the people we are told too often to look up to, respect, admire, emulate, pursue. You don’t have to look much further than the headlines to see the truth of that.

Here’s the problem with being the cruellest person in the room. It’s pretty simple. You’re a deeply unhappy and miserable person. Every moment that you invest in spite, cruelty, anger, fear is by definition a moment that you’re not bursting with happiness, seared with joy, flowing with love, right?

Human emotion isn’t either/or. You can feel great joy at your sadness. You can experience profound beauty in your suffering. This is what real intimacy is, whether with others, or with yourself. Paradox in our deep and common humanity.

The true sting in cruelty’s tail is that it prevents us from ever really experiencing the paradox of being human. If I’m being cruel to you, I might take minor-league pleasure in your pain. But only at the price of really experiencing the beauty in your suffering — or mine. To really see the beauty in your suffering, I have to empathize with it, feel it in me, let it break my heart.

And so cruelty costs us intimacy. That is a great and terrible price. Yet it’s self-evident. How many cruel people do you know who have experienced any kind of genuine human intimacy? I don’t know any. Whenever they get close to it, invariably, they throw it away. And they grow emptier and emptier.

It’s not a worthy way to live. What they are really throwing away is themselves. Because without intimacy, even with yourself, there is no sense that you have ever really been here, furiously alive, in this brief aching moment. There’s just a fire that feels like ice.

So those are three kinds of people not to be.

All of which begs the question. Who should you be?

You already know the answer.

Yourself.

Umair
Philadelphia
September 2016