How not to take things personally
The other day Fredrik Imbo in his ted talk "how not to take things personally" has asked a very beautiful question which was " Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy". That question hit me hard and I thought about it. It was such a simple but important question. Fredrik says sometimes when someone does something or someone says something or if someone rejects us or if things do not go our way we get hurt. At that time, it is not we who are hurt but our ego. When the ego takes over we start blaming others for how we feel or for things happening to us. Others have nothing to do with how we feel. It is we and only we who have everything to do with it. We get affected by others because we have a habit of taking everything personally due to our ego. If we start taking every small thing personally we will never be happy. Here Fredrik explains two very beautiful ways to not take things personally :
1.It is NOT about ME: Everything happening around yourself is not always about you and learn to accept that. Sometimes if someone says something then try to understand their intention before taking it to heart. Let’s say if a cricket match is going on and your team is winning and suddenly one player gets out.Umpire declares that the player is out. Everyone in the crowd starts cursing umpire, shouting at him. Here umpire must not take that personally because it is not about him but the match. People just want to be right and want their team to win. And many situations in our life are the same where what people say or do is not always about us, it is about themselves. When we will learn to understand that not everything is about us we will automatically stop taking everything to heart.
2. If it is about ME then be empathetic and speak up: sometimes when you feel that some particular things are about you and those are affecting you and your happiness. Then in such situations, you can talk to the other person. Be vulnerable and speak exactly how you feel. Don’t blame that person just speak nicely. This way you give people more chances to understand you and your needs. Being empathetic and having strong and clear communication will help to solve things quickly.
These two strategies will help us to learn how to handle things. Learning not to take things personally will open our mind, heart and thoughts. It will help us to see things from a different perspective. And when we don’t take things personally, we eventually stop being serious every time and be happier. After all, happiness is all we are looking for!!
