LS/MFT

為何有些人特別麻煩？難相處？

from "How to have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People" by Les Giblin, p.16,

“Low Self-Esteem Means Friction and Trouble.

When self-esteem is at a high level, people are easy to get along with. They are cheerful, generous, tolerant, willing to listen to others’ ideas. They have taken care of their own primary needs – and are able to think about the needs of others. Their own personalities are so strong and secure that they can afford to take a few risks. They can afford to be wrong, occasionally. They can admit to themselves that they have made a mistake. They can even be criticized and slighted, and take it in their stride – for such things only make a small dent in their self-esteem, and they have plenty more left.

It is a well known fact that the man-at-the-top is easier to deal with than small-fry. The story is told of a private in World War I who shouted “Put out that damn match,” only to find to his chagrin that the offender had been General “Black Jack” Pershing. When he tried to stammer out his apology, General Pershing patted him on the back and said, ”That’s all right son; just be glad I’m not a second lieutenant.”

The status of a general was not threatened by the remark of a private.

You have to lower yourself to be petty. When self-esteem is at a low ebb, trouble and friction come easily. And when self-esteem becomes low enough, almost anything can become a threat. This is what happens when a man strangles a woman because she went to sleep while he was talking. Had his self-esteem been high enough, the affront would not have assumed such important proportions to him. Had the 17-year-old boy had enough self-esteem, he would not have hard to rob a service station to prove to his buddies that “he was a man.”

To the person with low self-esteem, even a critical look or one harsh word can seem like a calamity. The so-called “sensitive souls” who see some “dig” or double-meaning in even the most innocent remark are suffering from low self-esteem. The braggart, the show-off, and the blusterer are also suffering from low self-esteem.

How to understand the bully. Even the arrogant person, who attempts to “put you in your place” or make you feel inferior, is really suffering from a low opinion of himself. You can understand his behavior if you keep in mind two things: first, he needs desperately to increase his own self-importance and is attempting to do so by beating you down and second, he is afraid. His self-esteem is at such a low ebb that he realizes that just about one good “take-down” by you would be sufficient to destroy it altogether. And although he doesn’t know for a fact that you would take a poke at his self-importance, he cannot afford to take that chance. He can’t approach you man-to man, on an equal basis, with his defenses down, because the risk involved would be too great. The only safe strategy he can use is to put you in your place, before you put him in his – which he imagines to be pretty low on the totem pole.

If you will remember those letters: LS/MFT, it will help you deal with all these people who suffer from low self-esteem. Understanding why they act the way they do will help you develop a strategy for handling them.

Realizing that it is low self-esteem that causes friction and trouble, you will not add to the trouble by trying to beat these people down even more. You will avoid sarcastic, cutting remarks. You won’t try to argue them down, for if you “win” the arguments, you will only further decrease their ebbing supply of self-esteem and make them harder to deal with than before. This is the psychology behind the well-known remark: “Win the argument and lost the sale.” “

Solution: To raise the self-esteem of these people by appreciation or other means in the daily contact with them.