How To Best Live Our Retirement Years

How To Best Live Our Retirement Years 

The answer here is obvious: there is no best way.  We are all different and unique in terms of our personalities, current environment, past history, and financial status. Everyone who reaches their retirement years has a story to tell, and that story dictates their needs in retirement. 

With a clumsy, albeit philosophical effort, there may be some generalities which apply to most retired persons, at least in the U.S. Since we have varied cultures existent in our society, any generalities may have limitations. 

First, retirement means some sort of changing of the guard. The next generation will determine the future and our generation is relegated to observation and acceptance of this shift of power from one generation to the other. That is the way it should be, and those who try to swim against the current here will find life increasingly frustrating. With retirement, the stress levels of living should drop dramatically barring financial insecurity, or dire health situations. So in this musing, the assumption will be that one’s health is good and financial security at a livable level. After that it is all mindset. If the plan is for us to continue to pile material wealth higher and higher——well, any real contentment level will continue to be evasive. If we are addicted to titles, power, control over others, money, social stardom, and being endlessly entertained by others, well, contentment in our terminational years will be evasive or limited. 

We all go through our formative and productive years with endless times feeling: “If I had things my way…….”.  When we leave our productive years we at last (barring health or financial reasons), can have things our way; at least in theory. The glitch is that often our way becomes how we want others to behave towards us or in certain situations. We are only really free to do things our way in terms of matters which involve only ourselves. So much of our lives we often held the reins over so many others that is comes as a jolt to find out, in our terminational years, that we can continue to pull the reins, but there is no one at the other end. We are free at last, but so are they. This is not an easy hurdle for many, and is often a hurdle which too many cannot get over. The grown kids may not pay us enough attention, the grandchildren may no longer be eager to be around us very often, our friends are dispersed, too whiney, too dead from the neck up—or six feet under, former colleagues from work no longer have much relevant to any conversation, visits with others in group gatherings become more and more inane superficial babble. Nothing is like it ‘used to be’ when we were such important deciders and participants. What do we really gain from most of this? Somebody’s grandchild is a pharmacist now, one of your kids is arguing with his neighbor over this or that, somebody’s pet is so adorable that we spend hours participating in an adorableness exercise, and on it goes, insufferable useless meaningless tidbits. I learned early on to be careful how much genuine attention one pays to anyone’s pet or child. That pet could end up all over you for the rest of the evening, or the child want to play endless child games.  You find many times that you don’t have control over any limits in these situations short of kicking the pet in the ass or breaking the childish game board. Of course I exaggerate here and am as guilty, or more so, than anyone else. Care to hear any more about Riva the Horse or Buff the dog?——we all get the point.

So, in effect, once we are in our terminational years we get to pick with whom we spend most of our time and doing what. So who best understands us? Who best likes the same things we do? Who best is compatible with our own unique personality?  The answer is rather obvious. We know ourselves best and no one is as similar to us than us, or with time changes just like us. I always laugh at one definition of masturbation: “Sex with someone you love”. That is so absurd, and yet research has shown the greatest sexual climaxes are often achieved via masturbation. That fits right in with: “What’s the matter, you can’t think of anyone either?”  I suspect some older people are reluctant to remarry for fear they might be expected to have sex with something as least sexy anymore as themselves. One person put it famously: "When I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, open my legs and think of England." I have always wondered how many older women were driven into depression over the appearance of Viagra on the scene? Or how many laughs are generated by middle-aged guys in a youthful pick-up bar, all dressed like they were part of a youth culture, as funny-looking as an aging starlet all surgically rearranged and implanted to escape their age. 

Many important aspects of our life simply have to be let go. “Gone with the wind”, that is what they need be. I once could run like a deer and come off the final turn, and with enough determination, finish strong with an impressive kick.” I still can do the distance but need a calendar instead of a stop watch. People will often tell us, when aged, that we need to ‘get a life’ and do some exciting things.

Most people, by the time they reach retirement years, have had about enough excitement in life as they can stand. Peacefulness, contentment, relaxation, good meals, napping as needed, favorite music as needed, philosophizing about life, good memories, gratitude for all those who helped us along the way, the lack of any need to compete about most anything, the quietude, the gentle soothingness of nature, finally seeing the forest for the sake of the trees, the simple things in life——all these are right there in front of us to form a bed of roses in our terminational years.  

Many however, make no attempt to ‘tip toe through the roses’ all around us, but spend their time trying to recreate long lost excitement about long lost activities of the past. That’s when the whining starts, and it is annoying to hear them whine away about everybody and everything. They simply can’t let go and endlessly seek others to amuse them, which then annoys the others in their productive years who have other pressing matters to attend to—namely a rat race that seems to never end. When we are senescent it is important that we, and those in their productive years, live in two different worlds. These worlds are different, not necessarily better or worse. Just like we had to make our productive years work out for us, we have to make our terminational years work out for us. Interestingly, barring bad health or financial stress, it is far easier to make our terminational years work out to our satisfaction. The reason is one word: simplification. Simplify, simplify, simplify, and then simplify further. A simple life fits the terminational years like a glove. 

In our formative years we don’t really know how to steer, and take many wrong turns, but at least get all sorts of intense thrills, disappointments, and frustrations. Then comes our productive years and the gas peddle, most of the time, for most people, is floored the whole time. We manage to get many of the places we are going, to varying degrees, or we die trying, or we give up and languish, but one way or another, if we race or stagger across the finish line, we get the terminational years as our ‘victory lap’. With competition and a goal line, a victory is simply confusing. Once the race is over, little or nothing seems to revolve around ourselves anymore. 

We seem to fall into two groups. Those who can’t stand this ‘victory lap stuff’ and those who relish every moment of it. We have really spent our lives picking up pieces of this giant puzzle called life. It is in the terminational years when we finally have the time to  put all the pieces together. Human contentment is tied closely to human understanding. It can be very satisfying to learn something new everyday about the world we just experienced for such a minuscule period of time. Learning anything of importance is rather hard today. Some people have hundreds of people on a face book page, and communicate with these people endlessly with text messages. 99% of this messaging is inane babble no matter which way we cut it. In reality, more and more people end up alone together via huge cyberspace ‘noise’. It becomes a background ’noise’ which is a major addiction. I watch people on a train almost frantically dial one person after another lest they have to create an original thought of their own. I can’t resit telling someone, sometimes, that “I don’t have time right now to amuse you while you walk down the grocery isle.”  Of course I have the time, but there are other things that give one a greater return on contentment, things that can enrich our final appreciation of life. 

One feature of the human species which is too oft overlooked is our intrinsic ethical nature. No species is endowed with an ethical nature to the extent our species is so endowed. We should never confuse inherited religions with human ethics. Inherited religion is happenstance. Inherited religions are human devised scriptures written in age related cultures which have long since ceased to exist. It is quite a stretch for us to imagine that God would use inheritance to pass on the guidance we need to be ethical. The town idiot could devise a better distribution system for something so important as getting to Heaven or Hell. And where did the concepts of Heaven and Hell originate? Humans created this notion as a means to control human behavior. Inherited religion promotes the concept that it is God who controls everything about life, that individual humans can have a personal relationship with God, that God made humans in the image of Himself, that God rewards those who follow their inherited religion and punishes those who inherited a different religion, that prayer is a means to have altered outcomes for individual and group desires. If any of this were true there would be certain religions in which the followers would be less likely to die of cancer, to be raped, to be poor, to be killed on the battlefield, to be murdered, to live longer, and so on. After all, the people who follow that inherited religion would have God protecting them and interceding on their behalf to prayers so earnestly rendered. None of this happens, and terrible things can happen to just about anyone, and the best of people can suffer while the worst of people can ‘get away with murder’. And how do organized religions explain all this?  Well, “God operates in mysterious ways”, and it is all ‘for the good’, just we can’t understand it.” This is really a musing for another day, so it best to stop here. 

The genetic basis for human ethics is centered around the ability of humans to understand the Golden Rule as an ethical principle. Everyone everywhere understands this ethical concept. No one argues it is not an ethical concept. They certainly understand this concept when they are on the receiving end. We love it when someone treats us as they themselves would wish to be treated. 

It is going the other direction which is difficult. Me first is also a genetic trait in all species, just at different levels. Nothing can be ethical which does not reward those who act ethically. “What is in it for me” is a question we ask ourselves all the time. It is not an ‘evil’ question at all. Organized inherited religions answer this question by creating “Heaven” and “Hell”. Genetic ethics answers this question via the achievement of personal contentment. Personal contentment is a reward we get right here in life, not something after death. 

Contentment is the goal of every person’s life. For anything else we pursue in life the question can be asked, “What are you doing this for?”. The answer could be any number of things, like money, power, titles, beating competition, fame, love, and on it goes. But no one asks “why would anyone want to be contented”? It is the one aspect of living that is an end unto itself. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that the ethical genetic trait embodied in our species is the means to contentment. To the extent we can take care of ourselves and give equal effort to help the less fortunate, we can achieve contentment. We can find relatively contented people among all groups of every religion, every profession, every economic level, every culture, every country, etc. If ethics is a human genetic trait then this would be expected. What percent of the people in these groups are contented is going to vary. And it varies because some people who choose to limit any adherence to the Golden Rule will make if more difficult for the less fortunate to achieve some contentment in their lives. Those who pile up excessive wealth for themselves, or a genetic cabal of offspring, or any other group not part of the less fortunate, can never maximize contentment. It is hard for the wealthy to achieve contentment simply because the admiral effort they exerted to gain the wealth cannot bring them to share it with the less fortunate. There are a few exceptions—like Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet.

Over time when we help the less fortunate via time or money we have done a good thing. We are repaying all those who helped us in time of need. “I gained my successes the old fashioned way, I earned it” is almost always a self serving illusion. Others and luck played a significant role. Maybe a Terrell Owens can reasonably make this claim, but this is rare, and carries with it significant repercussions socially. There are side-effects with being too self focused. Often time the ‘rat race’ (our productive years) leave little time to excel at the Golden Rule. For varied reasons, some people are in a better position during their productive years to help the less fortunate than others. Even with ethics, life is never a level playing field. But everyone, via personal time or money, can help the least fortunate amongst us in our terminational years. And here is the clincher: Were our culture to be governed by the Golden Rule, every child would have a good school with good teachers, every citizen would have excellent health care, every citizen would have an opportunity for work at their own skill level, every worker would make a living wage, there would be no military actions without every single citizen making a sacrifice for such action, everyone would have the same legal rights as anyone else, there would be no more religious hatred or intolerance, no intolerance of ethnic or cultural variations, no sequestering of wealth among genetic cabals, and while there would still be variations in skills, wealth, social status, and so on, contentment in such a society would be maximized for the greatest number of people. 

Personally, I have enjoyed sharing wealth with the least fortunate as much as I ever enjoyed accumulating it. Past a certain point wealth is a shameless and useless commodity. No matter how we tailor our terminational stage of life to fit our own peculiar personality it has to be built around the Golden Rule. Like a parent cannot be contented about their role as parent when the offspring are not successful on their own as best they can be, we cannot meet our own ethical obligations until we have personally done our part, with our time or money, to help the less fortunate in our global society, and given our support on issues which involve our natural resources and other species. Others do matter, and when they don’t, the ethical cost to our own lives is reduced personal contentment. With modern communication devices we truly have a global society. Countries are no longer that isolated from each other. There is a simple test all of us can administer to judge our own status regarding personal contentment. Here is the test, a quotation which sums up so much about the meaning of life. To the extent this quotation mirrors our own philosophy of life, we will have a personal contentment level to match. 

“There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it’s natural and good, and it evolved that way by itself, it’s got to be cherished and if we think like that and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation.”  

Interpersonal Relationships

Interpersonal Relationships

I should, perhaps, be one of the last to write any definitive treatise on interpersonal relationships. This musing is nothing more than observations. Like many others I have had all sorts of interpersonal relationships with others at various levels; I fell intensely in love, but never married; I have had close interpersonal relationships with varied kinds of bosses; through college and high school teaching I have had endless personal relationships with students from all backgrounds in life; I have received several teaching awards; I have been fired; I have had strong interpersonal relationships with many and varied pets. These experiences led to the observations which follow about interpersonal relationships. These observations are food for thought, not any masterful last words about the topic. 

Diversity and change are constants through the evolutionary process. This process is billions of years old and continues, not on human Time (which is so infinitely short) but evolutionary Time (which is infinitely long). That interpersonal relationships are unstable to varying degrees reflects the dependency of these relationships on diversity, change and time. 

Perhaps there is no such a thing as perfect interpersonal relationships, but simply gradations where some are stronger or weaker than others, and all as unique as the unique individuals who comprise these relationships. Though instability reigns more than stability in relationships, these experiences generate some of the most valuable experiences in life. Humans are essentially herd animals, maybe the most herd like in existence. Total human hermit-hood is rare, and perhaps represents a total failure to achieve meaningful interpersonal relationships.  Any other degree of hermit-hood is probably simply a variation of interpersonal relationships. 

Love is probably the most intense interpersonal relationship. Only a fool would try to define love. It happens if we are lucky, but the good luck may not survive time or circumstances. While love may, at least originally, be an intense thing, the intensiveness of it generates considerable stress. The good stress may end up bad stress over time. Half of marriages in the United States don’t last. While this is disappointing, it is not surprising. People change over time and these changes over time can tighten or loosen the bonds. In most cases the bonds probably loosen—the ‘perfect’ fit is no longer perfect and the ‘perfect’ fit may have been a tad illusionary at the time it happened. Thus most marriages probably adapt to each other’s changed peculiarities, some successfully, and others unsuccessfully. The individual peculiarities can be physical or behavioral or both. 

Courts try to decide who is at fault to what degree and who gets what in a divorce. It can be every bit as messy as the initial love affair, every bit as intense, but now the feelings involved are bad, not good. The culprit is almost always change. None of us are the same person we were ten years ago, or even the same person we were yesterday. So what is so surprising that two people, once such a good match, could, over time, be less of a perfect match? It has been a big mistake for human cultures to demand no change, when it comes to matters of love. “Till death do us part’ is hardly a helpful or realistic description of love or marriage. Even those half of the marriages which do not end in divorce are often not the same kind of bonding as when first married. Who could really know to what extent many of these ‘lasting’ marriages are as much co-existence, marriages of convenience, or simply a form of companionship after a while.  And why should anyone really care about another couple’s current interrelationship? I can remember my parents getting peeved at each other and not speaking to each other for days, but attend social gatherings in which nobody would know there was anything amiss. We mostly know very little about other people’s interpersonal relationships. 

Policies aside, Barack Obama has the most intriguing interpersonal relationships of most any President we have ever had. There doesn’t seem to be a label-able group he doesn’t seem to genuinely like. And yet that very non discriminatory ability to form strong interpersonal relationships with about anyone, of any sort, generates some of the most divisive politics over time, as first one group, and then another become genuinely angry that he continues to bring more and more diverse people under ‘the tent’ of deserving citizens. Every time he tries to include the excluded into the tent of ‘accepted citizens with full rights’, this angers those who are not about to accept as equals those who they for so long have found loathsome. There is a good example of how strong interpersonal relationships with diverse groups in a population can destroy one’s likability to many who frown on all that chumminess. Of course, in this present age, the size of the pie (natural resources) is not growing while the population soars. The increased competition for limited resources doesn’t exactly bode well for toleration of others in general, let alone suggest others, past denied, now be allowed at the trough. 

It is interesting that, in some respects, interpersonal relationships with pets can be more durable and constant than interpersonal relationships with other people. That seems strange. And angers many people that it even exists. “It is only an animal’, is not an uncommon battlecry of those who find these kind of relationships absurd. So why do these strong interpersonal relationships even exist at all? Pets, by their genetic capabilities, keep things rather simple. Their love tends to be unconditional. No matter how dumb, stupid, or moody we tend to be at times, a pet still just adores us. We may change over time, but the pet doesn’t really care, we are still their provider, their protector, and little else matters to them. While it is common for marriages to dissolve, it is uncommon for a relationship between a pet and owner to dissipate. A lot of this same relationship between parents and their kids often exists. Offspring are looked at, to some degree, as a creation, a truly remarkable feat to have accomplished, and here, like with pets, the offspring are given unconditional love—but only sometimes. Again, others may use the term ‘spoiled’ referring to someone’s kids, but that is more akin to the “it’s only an animal” comments. 

The strong ties between parent and offspring are not all that logical. Physical resemblance might be there but mostly not all that much except for obvious things like skin color. Personality-wise there is even less consistency. For most parents and a particular child, a closer fit personality-wise could probably be found elsewhere. Were it not for the very long formative stage of life for human offspring, the strong bonding would not be so strong. Then there is the cultural responsibility for being a ‘good’ parent, which boils down to an obligation to be there for a child, at least until they pass from their formative stage of life. If raising a child can often be a messy, frustrating, drawn out process, letting go can be equally a messy, frustrating, and drawn out process. Parenthood is one of those best of all possible worlds and worst of all possible worlds, depending the the day, moment in time, and year.  

My own observations are dependent on having had teacher-student relationships with thousands of young people transferring from their formative stage of life to their productive stage of life. If one likes theatre, this is hard to top. Parent-offspring relationships, like any other kind of human relationships, are not cut and dried. Their is no ‘best’ way to be a parent anymore than there is any ‘best’ way to be a teacher, a coach, a teammate, a friend, a boss, an employee, and so on. Each person in a personal relationship is unique and so of course the relationship itself is unique. It would be difficult to pass judgement on anyone else’s relationship with another. But we do it all the time, especially those people who go through life with braces on their brain, using their own personal beliefs as a benchmark to judge others. Of course personal beliefs are hardly facts, often have no solid rational basis, and just represent nothing more than a learned personal belief. All of us are guilty, some more than others. Live and let live is a healthy attitude in any society but almost impossible to attain. How peaceful any society is depends on just how much that society can achieve widespread tolerance of diversity. Of course this has nothing to do with criminal acts committed by one person against another. 

Most interpersonal relationships are time dependent. They come and go with time. Others are there for life, but hardly in the same form, degree, or any other particulars. For lengthy relationships, most often there will be nostalgic remembrances of the good ole days. It takes decades for us to mature, and it takes even longer for us to die. Death is really by a thousand cuts, unless it comes suddenly by disease, accident, or murder. It is hard to say when we first started to die, just as it is hard to say why any personal relationship starts to fade. There is inherent sadness in a fading relationship but if change and diversity were not the operative reality of God’s evolutionary process, we would die of boredom—-it would be the same ole, same ole, same ole until death. Some people cling desperately to the same ole, same ole, until death and that seems sad too. Forced separation, via death or any other means often cements the intensity of the relationship for life. All thoughts of the departed one remain at a constant level of positive intensity. Naturally the price paid for retaining such a positive intensity of a former relationship was steep. A new spouse replacing a one who died young has every reason to fear the emotional attachment of the new spouse to his/her former spouse. Their new relationship will undergo the stresses associated with time and change, while the memories of the deceased spouse will be forever riveted in a time capsule that does not change. 

The three stages of life anyone who lives a long time goes through——the formative, the productive, the terminational—are by their nature ones in which our interpersonal relationships are quite different. We often go from great dependance to great independence, and then back to varied degrees of dependency again. Success in our productive years often means a rougher time in the terminational years, when all the productive years’ successes are history, and we are left with influence, power, titles—relegated off to the side lines, mostly irrelevant to much of anything. That is a huge shift.  

For some the terminational years are a perfect fit, a chance to live life day by day, with less stress, less responsibility, less battles, a chance to reflect on what life has been all about, and if our lives have been lucky—we use gratitude as the fuel to keep us contented. For others, the terminational years are filled with regret that the productive years have ended. Expecting interpersonal relationships with others to be the source of contentment is a risky venture. Like it or not, in our terminational years we have less and less real contributions to make in any relationships, except maybe spousal ones. And even that is problematic in that when a spouse dies first, the adjustment to being single may prove way too much to handle at an older age. 

The most lasting interpersonal relationship and the most meaningful interpersonal relationship is the relationship we have with ourselves. If we cannot manage to amuse, understand, and entertain ourselves, then contentment can be hard to come by. By the time we reach our terminational years, and in fairly good health, if we cannot come to grips with our own limitations regarding interpersonal relationships with others, then we are on the road to frustration. The complaints begin, and more and more we feel like nobody is paying us enough attention. Laying guilt trips on others, who we feel pay us too little attention, rarely generates good results.  I can still hear my dad telling my mother, “If I die and leave you alone, don’t you dare go live with either of your sons. They both have a busy life to lead, and you will feel neglected and left dangling off on the sidelines. You have enough money to get into a quality group living situation and that is where you will find as much attention as you want every day.”  His point seems well taken. Why would anyone want to place themselves in a position where whenever they open their mouths, another person kind of feels “Now what?”. It is better, in the terminational years to have people visit only if they want to. That will be a good visit. Any other kind of visit, engineered via guilt trip pressures, will be disappointing. Ask many grandparents who remember the days when the grandchildren couldn’t get to see them enough, and yet once the teenage years arrive, kind of mumble about too many forced visits to see Grandma and Grandpa. The reality is that many Grandparents use young grandchildren as a tool to ensure their own kids come to see them more often. We are always looking for culprits in faltering interpersonal relationships and this is silly. Time changes the nature of most interpersonal relationships. We have to deal with it, not try to swim back upstream in a relationship. 

Again, if we can understand ourselves, and improve our own ability to amuse, entertain, and motivate ourselves, then we are never really alone. Actually, in old age, the less we are any threat of a clinging relationship with others, the more likely others will engage us, and at their own level of intensity. I live in a building with 140 units. Some times younger residents will invite me to a party on the spur of the moment. Other older residents have asked me “Why do they invite you and not other older residents?” I always smile and say, “because I never agree to go”. What kind of sensible pleasure is it to go places where people feel sorry for an aging situation and force themselves to chat with us for a bit? For the most part, the older you get the less meaningful the conversations become, the more childlike they become, the more inane, the more disingenuous. Blah, blah blah rules the day.

Lack of meaningful personal interrelationships between two people by no means reflects any wrong or right on either person’s part, at least most of the time. Given the wide range of diverse personalities amongst humans, there is no surprise most people are not a good fit for close compatibility for all that long a time. On the other hand, there is also no reason why most people need be adversaries either. The question gets reduces to “what are our responsibilities to others who are not our own ‘cup of tea’?”  For the most part we probably do well to ask, regarding anyone, “Have I done anything to them which has hurt them in any way other than not being chummy with them?”  If the answer is no, then no ‘crime’ has been committed. And this goes both ways. We may wish to have a particular person be more friendly or close to us and they just won’t. They have committed no ‘crime’ either. 

As herd animals with the ability for extensive verbal communication, humans talk a lot about each other, almost constantly. The point at which we cross the line with what we say about others is naturally a bit vague. Intent is key here. What was our purpose when we make a critical observation about someone else? Is it meaningless banter or an attempt to shed light on someone’s behavior in a given situation, or is the purpose to hurt the person is some way which is not necessary at all, and simply damages the person’s reputation or status in life? There is a difference between talking about someone’s peculiar oddities and calling them a jerk or a no good person. For example, Sarah Palin’s many personal oddities are of little interest or import except her personal oddities, allowed to become law, hurt a huge number of persons, and not in minor ways. In the same vein, a person may have all sorts of religious beliefs and that is no reason to criticize them in any serious way, but everyone has a right to attack that person if they are trying to make their own religious beliefs the law of the land. 

Thus, for any particular person, there is the question of any personal interrelationship with us, and whether this person is harmful to others in ways which are unacceptable. Ethics is always about the Golden Rule. We are obligated, by our own intrinsic ethical nature, to treat others as we would have them treat us. But we are obligated to also oppose those who would treat others badly. 

Live and let live, up to a point, is a wonderful attitude. It maximizes contentment in any society. The gay marriage debate is a perfect example. Why would anyone wish to interfere with who someone else can fall in love and consequently marry? Why would anyone insist on forcing others to participate in some kind of religious ritual in public?  What possible good ever comes of such intrusiveness into the personal lives of others? We should always be careful not to irritate others for no valid reason. My personal beliefs are never a valid reason to make life more difficult or unpleasant for others. We can, I reckon, get a bit silly and say “Well I believe it is wrong to kill someone, and I want this to be the law of the land.” Of course everyone should support actions which protect others from being hurt by any abrogation of the Golden Rule. 

There are some personalities which most everyone likes. There are some personalities which few like or even understand. That is the way diversity works. None of us are obligated to have close interpersonal relationships with those we don’t like. Like is not even the best word. Just because we are not a close and comfortable fit personality-wise, does not really mean we don’t like them. Because you don’t want to date someone does not mean you do not like them. 

People often overlook interpersonal relationships when they seek employment. If our prospective boss is not going to be the kind of person who will be a good fit for strong interpersonal relationships between ourselves and them——beware.  The job may seem perfect, but a perfect job may not work out if the interpersonal relationship between ourselves and our boss is going to be incompatible. In general, it is always wise to not put ourselves in situations where we cannot be ourselves with our own peculiar traits. And likewise, if we are going to be boss over others, and be the best boss we can be, we have to learn how to respect diverse personalities and get these diverse personalities to perform at their best level. I have known bosses who manage to get the best work out of all kinds of personalities, and I have known bosses who expect everyone to march lock, step and barrel all the time. Both can sometimes work, but clearly one is more admirable than the other. There is no question but which method is more admirable. 

Books are written in great detail about interpersonal relationships. The above are just some observations to stimulate thought. It just seems that the most important question we all need ask ourselves, from time to time is not how many really like us, but whether, given our own peculiar personality, whether others are being hurt by our actions, not our personality. If someone really dislikes us, and we have never done anything to them that interferes with their life in any way, we should not lose sleep over it. Life is full enough of these kind of people, whose gripe with us is simply our own unique personality. They pay a price for their inability to accept diversity. They go through life never very happy campers. They simply can’t accept diversity and they remain bitter persons throughout their lives. That is not exactly a very smart mental state to achieve in life. Bitterness is a terrible affection. 

As so often, I will close with my favorite quotation of unknown origin:

“There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it’s natural and good, and it evolved that way by itself, it’s got to be cherished and if we think like that and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation.”