What Obnoxious People Teach Us

I recently had a conversation with a friend who sought advice from me about dealing with people you don't like. I guess I should be an expert by now since I've been in a sea of people I don't quite like for quite some time! In any case, through talking to her I realized something about obnoxious people - they can bring out the worst in you or help you grow as a person. If they do the latter, maybe its best you thank them for their behavior?

In all seriousness, obnoxious people are to the regular person what sick people are to doctors and scientists. It sucks to be the sick person, but to the observer, healer, and investigator, sick people represent a chance for one to learn not only about disease processes in the human being but also about the normal mechanisms of the human body.

Why do we find someone obnoxious? When you really think about it, it could be that they remind you of a trait that you detest in yourself. Or they are engaging in behavior that is not considered to be socially acceptable. For example, a person you find obnoxious because they brag about their success. In most settings, we like people who are humble. So the obnoxious person is breaking a certain social rule. But really, why do most people like those who are humble? I'd postulate that when someone brags about their success it causes us to take a magnifying lens to our own lives. "Have I done anything nearly as successful as this person?" If not, the obnoxious person may just make you feel like a loser, even if you only feel that way subconsciously.

Wow! Feeling like a loser. That's not such a great feeling. Many of us have been complemented and supported most of our lives because we were "smart," "successful," "attractive," etc. And now here comes someone to rain on your parade and make you question how smart, successful, or attractive you really are.

What to do? What to do?

Well, some people lash out at the obnoxious person or simply just spew vile things about the person to make them "go away" and make the negative feelings of inadequacy go away. "Ugh I can't stand that bitch. She's such a [insert negative noun]," or "She's not really hot you know. If you look at her close up she has a mole on her left cheek." Or we find ways to reduce the size of their achievements,"yeah anyone could do that if they were given a leg up too." Either way, whether these thoughts are said out loud or to ourselves, the purpose of these comments are to make US feel better about OURSELVES. I've been guilty of this many a times. But after 4 + 1 years (undergrad + grad school) of being around people I can't stand, I'm learning to turn that frown upside down!

When I'm confronted with an obnoxious person or a person I don't particularly like, while my initial response may be to say something negative, I try to get to the root of my dislike, and once I get there I try to fix my negative feelings by substituting positive feelings or actions. For instance overachievers in my field can stir a lot of negative feelings in many people. But making fun of an overachiever is just too easy. Furthermore many overachievers are driven by low self-esteem anyway, so why feed into that?

Instead, I realize that overachievers make me wonder about how much I'm achieving, am I measuring up, and will I ever get what *I* want in my life? These are questions I do need to ask myself though, as they are important in directing my career goals. Some people might be spurred to do something, anything(!) when confronted by negative feelings that an overachiever brings them. Instead, I just make sure I'm on the right course, and if I HAVE been taking a lazy route, I know its time to get off my bum and pursue something I'M interested in; not something I think other people want to see me do. In the end, it helps me grow.

Quite honestly its easy for me to judge people and they go in a bin. My bin of "people I dislike" is always in need of a spacial upgrade whereas the "people I do like" bin always looks sparse. But to let all those people I dislike know I don't like them is to my disadvantage. Because as humans we need each other for many things and burning bridges, unless completely necessary, is silly. Furthermore, there is always a chance that a person I dislike turns out to be someone I do like later on after some crucial event.

So my friends, while it is not necessary to smile and thank people you can't stand, next time you're bitching about someone, get to the root of the matter. What is it that you don't like about that person, and how can this knowledge benefit you in some way?

Ciao!

Self growth is H-A-R-D

I'm always an advocate for self-growth. There are many times in ones life when it is best to take stock of who one is, what faults one has, and how to improve on those faults. Though I have many faults, I have found that I usually like concentrating on the easy ones to fix. For example, not being nice to people. That's an easy one to fix. I'll just smile more and not say anything rude or obnoxious, and filter anything that might hurt someone's feelings. See! Easy. But there is this problem that I have that I've been trying to fix for years, and it is extremely hard to overcome it. I hate to even admit it, but I'm not a humble person.

Don't get me wrong, I'm obstensibly humble. I won't go bragging on about anything just for the sake of it, but the fact that I am ultimately not humble comes up in a strange situation. When I look over at people and find fault with them, something in me wants me to feel better than them for some reason. "Oh its ok they're smarter, they're ugly." Or "Oh its ok they're not ugly, they're dumb." But then there are times when I can't find anything to justify being better than a person and I internally go nuts.

Case in point, there are 4 black people in my medical school class, myself included. One is a guy and he's gay, so I never really compare myself to him. The other is a 30 year old woman who is engaged, so I don't compare myself to her either. But then there is another girl. My same age. And so she is the person that I look to when I want to give myself standards. It's usually simple like, oh, I'm better b/c I dress better. Oh I'm better because I have a better understanding of the material, I got a better grade on this test, blah blah blah. But how long can I do this until I run out of ways of feeling better and WHY must I feel better?

It made me think. Feeling better than others has always been my identity. When I was a little kid my moms friends would love to listen to me talk about what I learned in school that day and would even be nice enough to entertain my bajillion questions. As I got older, I always got put in a different track of people, "The more ABLE learners." And within this track I had the most ambition. I got to college and all of that came-a-tumbling down. I was no more able to learn than others, and as a matter of fact, I was seriously lagging behind most students. That was easy to fix. I'd just dress better and not work harder, but work smarter.

So here I am in med school, not any med school either. I'm at the kind where they take people who have done completely amazing things and stuff 'em in a class of 86 people. I should say that not all of us have done any tangibley amazing things.. myself included. But even amongst all 84 other people I was able to finally say to myself that I gained admission because I've been through a lot of personal tragedy and I'm still standing.

But then that just leaves the other one person that gets me to really look long and hard at myself. Am I jealous of her? Am I envious? What IS it? And the thing is, I don't want to be her, at all. But I guess what she stands for is this - through all the tragedy I've endured, I've been told that it's a good thing, that it makes me stronger, that it will get me to better places. But then I get faced with someone who, from what I can tell, didn't have to go through the same things, and I get angry. It gets back to the why me question. Have I been lied to? Does life really have no compensation for having to deal with stuff no one would ever sign themselves up for? So in essence its not her, but its what she represents to me.

A lot of my questions are still unanswered and will never be answered. But I have to find some way to feel better about the whole thing. Maybe one day I'll be mature enough to truly never envy anyone, and I will stop believing that life owes me more simply because I've been through "more." I mean, there is always someone who has it worse right?

Moreover, the one good side effect of having a living, breathing representation of my frustration in life is that my anger gets channeled into working harder. I say, Damn you life, you may not give me more but I will make more of you because that is the only way I will feel better about the circumstances under which I have had to live.

So there I have it. I'm still not mature enough, yet, to get over any hang ups I may have... but I'm fine in having this "vice" since it ultimately motivates me to strive for not just the top, but the tippy, tippy, top. ... for better or worse I guess..