Some people in this world are just mean.  You really can’t get around it, they are out there.  Every one of us has someone in our lives that is rude and they can even make life difficult.  This is simply something that we can’t control and that we have no way to change. What we can control is how we react to these people.  

You can control the effect people have on you and how the impacts you

We can control how these kind of people affect us and we can choose to not let them change the course of our day or week.  We can control our proximity to these kinds of people and protect ourselves from their toxic behaviour and lack of concern for other people.  What we want to make sure we are not doing is becoming like them in any way. And that means not treating them in the way they treat us.

A little empathy for a mean person let’s you see that they are probably just hurting inside…and they’re human!

How can we do this?  How can we treat someone nicely that is rude, mean or just plain doesn’t care about the people around them.  It’s actually quite simple as long as you don’t just follow the thinking of most people in this world and get judgy and angry, just remember they are human…just like you.  They have faults just like you and they make mistakes just like you.  Maybe the mistakes they have made have made their character the way it is today  Remember they are human and try to treat them with respect even though they do not return the favor.  You can be the bigger person, you can act like you care and not be rude back. You can, I know it!

It’s possible to come out of an interaction with a mean person and still feel good

The great thing is that you will feel good about yourself and you will even feel good about interactions with this person even if they were nasty back to you.  If you treated them the same way they are treating you and were rude you would probably feel pretty bad later on and letting them affect your behavior usually affects you negatively the rest of the day.  At the very least you would probably feel like you let yourself down and stooped to their level.

Controlling the amount of interaction with mean peopl is your choice, stay away if they are negatively impacting you!

An important thing to remember is that you do not have to be best friends with the individual, you don’t even need to be friends at all!  You can control your proximity to them and simply stay away. Just because you have the ability to treat someone with respect that has none for others does not mean you need to be around them.  Just stay away!

You manage your own reaction, not the other person.  Make a negative interaction into a positive one for you and let them be the angry one

When you do interact with these types of people you can have the self control to manage your reaction to their behavior and manage how you treat them back.  The last thing you need in life is another negative interaction with someone so just make it positive on your end, no matter what they say or do to you!  They can’t control you or change your emotions or behavior.  Only you can do that, so choose the high clean road and let them live down on the dirty gross road by themselves.  You can come out of pretty much any interaction with a smile, you just have to choose it and live it out!