We are all most likely familiar with the understanding that “no one is perfect”. However, does that understanding help you give people the benefit of the doubt when you discover they are not perfect?
The reality is that we all have idiosyncrasies (present company…me…definitely included). Despite the reality though that nobody is perfect, are we able to take this to heart and really understand what that means?
The alternaview suggests that instead of allowing yourself to focus on character flaws an individual may have, and determining that these flaws define the person; we should instead focus on the fact that people are multidimensional and have different strengths and weaknesses. I know I have been guilty of only seeing certain people’s weaknesses (mostly because they were so apparent and were jumping up in my face) and then determining that those weaknesses prevented that person from being able to be anything other than terrible.
However, I have come to see that nobody is perfect and if we genuinely understand people have both good and bad things about them, it will be easier to not solely focus on those traits we consider bad at the exclusion of other good traits. As a result, we will be more apt to see and appreciate those aspects of a person that will allow us to see them in a different light.
Some Things to Remember:
1. You have to take the “bad” traits along with the “good” ones, but you can choose to focus only on the good.
• It is not that you are looking through rose colored glasses, bur rather that you are being a realist and understanding that the vast majority of people are going to have good and bad things about their personality. As long as we are focusing on the “good”, we are just going to feel better about that person in the end.
2. You also are made up of both “good” traits and “ bad” traits.
• It is always easier to understand things when we personally experience them ourselves. We all have both good and bad character traits, but what makes the real distinction between people who seem “better” than others is how dialed up are our bad traits and are they overshadowing our good ones?
3. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
• Yes, it may be cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true. It can be difficult to overlook people’s challenging traits, especially when some of their behaviors or actions either directly or indirectly affect us, but it is something we need to continually try to do. We may not successfully be able to do it 100% of the time, but every time we try, we get better and better at it until eventually it becomes easier.
So, the next time you are focusing on someone and all you can see is your frustration and their issues, remember that there is always something better you can focus on and improve your perception of the person…this is the alternaview.
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