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Attacking someone is not a good way to motivate someone to help you. Instead, make a specific positive request, and show them that you’d appreciate the help.
Also when you look at your life, most of the moments of a given day could be viewed as ordinary moments of work and doing chores like cleaning, cooking, and raking the leaves. If you decide to make the most of those ordinary moments instead of dreading them and slogging through them, you will change your life. By bringing a positive attitude to work and chores, you will bring enjoyment and vitality to all those all the ordinary moments and to your relationships.
Telling provocative stories about other people will get you attention. Yet spreading unverified information will cause harm to you in ways that may not be immediately evident.
There are ten harmful effects to people who spread rumors and perpetrate malicious gossip:
1. You prove you are not trustworthy. When people hear you speculating about other people or spreading rumors, they know that you are likely to talk about them behind their back as well.
2. You appeal to busybodies. You will be fostering relationships with an uninspiring group of people. Individuals who listen to rumor mongering do not have a lot going on in their lives and will not be interesting themselves.
3. You hurt others. Spreading rumors damages other people’s reputation without being based on substantiated fact. You can destroy people’s self-confidence, their careers, and even their lives.
4. You feel dirty. The attention may feel good while listeners are gripped by your salacious story, but soon thereafter it won’t feel good when you realize you’ve damaged someone’s reputation.
5. You waste time focusing on hearsay. The time spent talking about others could have been used to do something more productive or inspiring.
6. You lose your credibility. When you exaggerate or spread unverified gossip, people will stop believing what you say.
7. You feel pressure to satisfy a never-ending thirst for more rumor-mongering. You will need to come up with more stories to pique the jaded or prurient interest of your listeners, which further pressures you to exaggerate or spread hearsay.
8. You push interesting people away. People with productive or interesting lives are generally repelled by rumor mongers, and will start avoiding you once they figure out your MO.
9. You lose sight of your own interests. The attention you’re getting is not in response to your more positive talents, skills and efforts, but the salacious gossip you mete out. What you focus on in life is what develops. So your more positive qualities diminish into the background.
10. You demean yourself. You degrade yourself by showing a lack of integrity when you choose to spread unverified information.
Conclusion
It’s natural to be curious about other people’s lives, to spread factual or verifiable news about others, and to discuss human behavior to gain insight into our own lives and the lives of others. Yet spreading rumors, which are not verified facts, generally diminishes your life and the lives of those around you.
Rudeness tends to gradually get worse if you simply let it slide, causing relationships to deteriorate. But resentment and over-reaction make things worse as well. So how should you respond to rudeness?
When someone is rude to you, whether it is your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, child, or acquaintance, it’s best not to do respond to the person’s demand. First, let them know that you don’t appreciate his or her rude attitude. The trick is not becoming hostile yourself.
A simple “excuse me?” with a questioning tone of voice often will be enough for them to apologize or rephrase with a more neutral tone of voice.
Sometimes you may have to actually say, “That tone of voice really doesn’t work for me,” or “please don’t yell at me,” or “I don’t appreciate being yelled at,” or “it’s not helpful to sound angry.” Again, the key is to remain calm, and in some circumstances, you may even be able to retain a sense of humor, which is often the most effective way to get things on the right track.
If we let rudeness slide, our relationships will deteriorate over time, allowing disrespect and contempt to take over. It’s very important, however, not to put the other person on the defensive. Thus, stay calm, maintain your dignity, and retain a sense of humor if appropriate.
It’s normal for parents to want to connect with their kids. Asking questions or wanting to give advice may be the way they attempt to connect with them.
It’s almost always best not to become reactive, angry or recalcitrant, particularly when your parent is well-intentioned. Instead, try to preempt your dad by finding a way to make that connection without having to answer questions that you don’t feel like answering.
You could find a way to approach him first. Have a few questions ready for him. For example, ask him about his youth, early jobs, school, friends, difficulties, challenges, movies, books, where he got his political leanings etc. before he gets a chance to ask you too much.
When he asks you something, give a brief answer without getting defensive, and then say, “What about you, Dad, when did you go on your first date?” You might not be very curious, but it will take the focus off of you, and the answer could be interesting.
You could also disclose some information about yourself that you don’t mind disclosing before he starts asking questions. Talk about an event at school, at work or in the news. If you make the effort to connect and converse on your terms, he may not be as interested in inquiring about the private details of your life.
If you persist in keeping everything completely private, that will only provoke his interest. For instance, if you never mention anything about whom you’re dating, he will be more interested than if you give him just the basic information in a nonchalant tone of voice.
The best defense is a good offense, although in this case we’re not talking about a fight, but about an attempt to make a human connection.
One day if you have kids, you too may stumble a bit in trying to make a connection.
“I don’t think our views are that far apart. We’re just coming at it from different angles. Tell me what you think I’m saying so I can clarify my ideas better.”
Attacking a person hinders communication and damages relationships. If you want to open someone’s mind or heart, don’t imply that they don’t listen and can’t understand simple logic.
To have an effective discussion, you need an underlying attitude of respect, which conveys a desire to appreciate the other person’s perspective and to come to a mutually-accepted understanding.
