The Feeling Problem

Much of the controversy that we have at TLC revolves around feelings.

"This person doesn't like me."

"He thinks he's better than I am."

Or "He thinks he knows more than me."

These kinds of utterances come out of peoples' mouths all the time at our program.  And we actually have some people who don't talk to one another over hurt feelings.  

But the reality is that if I think someone doesn't like me that doesn't mean it's true.  The reality is that unless someone tells me they don't like me, then I have to have some super form of extrasensory perception to be able to tell how they feel toward me.

But even more important is that most of the time what someone thinks of us is not really important - unless we're married to them or they're signing our paycheck.

I read something by a philosopher the other day that made a lot of sense.  He said that if we consider every disagreement we get into as 100% our responsibility we'll have a pretty smooth life.  And, you might say, well I'm not always 100% wrong, you may need to rethink your position.  After all, didn't you get yourself into a situation where you got into the disagreement in the first place?

And, in the final analysis, is it really important who's right or wrong to the point where we waste our precious  time on it.  The only time being right or wrong might be important is if we're mixing up the ingredients for a nuclear bomb - then we better get it right.  But really, how often do we get into arguments that involve life or death results?  Not often.

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