JORGE RODRIGUES SIMAO

We all have to deal with them on a daily basis: weird and difficult people. At times of frustration and disappointment with these characters, a friend of mine mutters, "Human beings, what a stupid concept!" Mark Twain must have felt the same when he wrote, "If man had created man he would be ashamed of his performance." Like my friend, you probably sometimes wish that other human beings especially those with whom you live and work - were as logical, trustworthy, intelligent, kind, hard-working, fun-loving, and practical as you.

In fact, you want to help thousands of people to be a lot less dysfunctional so that they can be more like you.

No doubt the world would be a much better place.

Are you wrong in saying that so many human beings can be quite ignorant?

Apparently not.

Albert Einstein must have been generally disappointed with people when he wrote, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Frank Dane concurred with his classic statement: "Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow."

Granted, there are a lot of ignorant human beings out there.

But are all these ignorant people bad human beings or are they just different from you and me?

At this point it is also worth asking: Are our unreasonable expectations of other people contributing to the ignorance and other flaws we see in them?

Given that other people are not perfect, it's best that we accept them as they are or else fall victim to their whims.

You will inevitably find that many people will hurt you in the event you let them.

Certain critics will try to burst your bubble and knock you off your cloud.

They will try to interfere with your plans and projects even when they have no direct interest in them.

Irrespective of how much good you do on a project, someone, somewhere, will find reasons to complain about your performance.

While you are trying to light the fire in your life, someone will try to put it out for you.

There are many more frustrating human traits.

Friends and relatives will let you down, even though you have just performed several special favors for them.

You will find that many people don't play by the same rules as you.

Some will drive you crazy because they change their minds from one minute to the next.

You and I agree that there are even certain people on this planet who probably shouldn't be here.

But keep in mind that the roles are often reversed.

You are also human and you will occasionally, or even frequently, let other people down.

You will screw up and you will do dumb things and you will upset others.

You won't meet someone else's high standards regardless of how hard you work at it.

You will also criticize and reject other people, and potentially create the same effect on others as people who criticize and reject you have had on you.

You can accept that rocks are hard and water is wet.

Then make allowances for the fact that people are only human.

To be sure, if they weren't, life would be different.

But with all the negative traits that humans tend to exhibit, they are still an important element in the happiness game.

Human nature is fickle or outrageous at times.

No doubt many people can be more dishonest, rude, unreasonable, inconsiderate, and ignorant than you.

 Just don’t freak out when they are.

The key to making people more pleasurable is to be less offended by human nature.

Focus more on people's positive qualities than the negative.

Viewed in this way, humans can be accommodating, generous, inspiring, humorous, gentle, charitable, and forgiving. In the midst of it all, spend a lot less time judging the human race.

You have more important things to do with your life.

Judging others is tedious and won't make you many friends besides, the last time I checked, judging other people was still God's job.