How Treating Others Well Makes Your Life Better
“It was,” I said, “I mean, I shouldn’t have let her think―”
“Oh, stop. You got the sketches, right?”
“Sure, but―”
“That’s what’s important. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”
...
Let me explain what’s going on here.
The above dialogue is from Affinities,
a science-fiction novel by Robert Charles Wilson. Adam, the first
speaker, is a new member in a small group called an affinity.
What
you need to know to understand this bit of dialogue is that people in
the same group have been scientifically matched to each other. As a
result, everyone in the group is “on the same wavelength” with each
other to an extraordinary degree — they automatically feel comfortable
with each other, want the same things, and so on. (I’ve left out some
details, but the story is still the same.)
Adam
had broken off a relationship with Rachel, an outsider, because he knew
they had no future as a couple and he didn’t want to take advantage of
her. Later, a group member persuaded Adam to contact Rachel again to get
a sketch of a man who was a threat to the group.
When Amanda said,
“The rest of it doesn’t matter,”
something in me said uh-oh
In
the above dialogue, Adam was trying to tell Amanda (another group
member, also his occasional lover) about whether making the contact
(which had upset Rachel) and
getting the sketch had been the right thing to do. And Amanda’s reaction
sounded to me like she was irritated by his doubts.
Let me tell you about the unexpected reaction I had to reading it.
Turning people into things
When Amanda said, “The rest of it doesn’t matter,” something in me said uh-oh, and I felt that, whatever direction the novel took, something about Amanda’s reaction would be a part of it.
So what was important about Amanda’s reaction?
For Amanda, Rachel was outside their group, so Rachel didn’t matter.
Adam’s worry about being unfair to her didn’t matter. Rachel wasn’t
really a person — she was an object to be used and discarded, like an
obsolete cell phone. The only thing that mattered to Amanda was doing
whatever the group needed.
And my intuition turned out to be correct. By the end of the book, Adam too was used and discarded by the group.
But that’s not all that had happened.
In
the quarter-century since Adam and Amanda’s group had been created, it
had used its members’ ability for close cooperation to press its
advantage at a global scale. Eventually, the group’s focus on its own
success becomes its downfall, as all the excluded people (and
governments) acted to protect themselves from this powerful minority.
Good fiction can teach us lessons that we absorb without even knowing it
So
it turns out that my intuition was correct in another way. Just as
Amanda’s dehumanizing attitude toward Rachel led (indirectly) to Adam’s
ultimate downfall (banishment from the group), the group’s dehumanizing
attitude toward the rest of the world led (eventually) to its own
downfall. (FYI, the story ends on a note that is hopeful for Adam and
the rest of the world.)
Why is this story so compelling?
Affinities
tells a compelling story about the human condition (and got widespread
acclaim as a result, including a positive review by Stephen King — who
said he was no fan of science fiction — on Entertainment Weekly).
And much of the enthusiasm for Affinities
comes from the fact that readers were drawn — as human beings always
are — to a story that tells them something true about themselves.
Good fiction can teach us lessons that we absorb without even knowing it.
What does Affinities have to teach us? Here’s what I got out of it.
First, when you treat others badly, you hurt yourself in the end.
“But,” you may counter, “I’ve seen people who do that all the time, and
they didn’t suffer for it.” What you say is true, but just because you
don’t see consequences, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t any.
Here’s
what happens. Nobody wants to see himself as a bad person, so you can
imagine telling yourself a story to justify what you did and keep from
feeling guilty about it. You would say things like, “She’s a bitch” or
“He was asking for it” or something similar.
So damage is done, but it’s invisible because it’s internal
damage. These self-justifying stories damage your ability to feel
positive emotions. They convince you that you need to protect yourself
from a hostile world. You become less open to new experiences.
Eventually, you see danger everywhere, you’re angry at everything, and
you’re alone all the time.
Second, when you treat others as less than human, you become a little less human, too.
Dealing honestly with people takes time and effort. Treating people
like objects, on the other hand, gets results quicker and easier. But
making connections to other people is an essential part of being human,
so doing less of it makes you less human.
Apologies work because
they tell you that you are a human being
whose feelings matter
An
additional decrease in your humanity results from the consequences
described in the previous point. When you lose access to positive
emotions, close yourself to new experiences, and push people away with
your anger, you cut yourself off from the better part of human
experience. This too makes you less human.
Protecting yourself from losing your humanity
The response that protects every human being from falling into inhumanity is the combination of empathy — projecting yourself into the other person’s situation — and acting in a way that includes the other person and his needs.
Here’s
an example: Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith sees apologizing to
others as one of the few “magic moves” that clients can use to improve
their lives. He says that apologizing is magic because of how it
“trigger[s] decent behavior in other people.”
So why do apologies trigger decent behavior in other people?
Apologies work because they tell you that you are a human being whose feelings matter.
For
example, an article in the New York Times (May 18, 2008) reported that a
hospital that embraced apology over denial decreased its malpractice
lawsuits from 262 in a previous year to 82 in the year that followed the
policy change.
Think about
this: Two out of three people chose an apology instead of the pleasure
of causing the guilty parties to pay their wrongdoing and
the possibility of a huge amount of settlement money. This tells you
how much people are hungry for the simple acknowledgment of their
humanity.
So when you are in
conflict with someone, remember the power of acknowledging the other
person’s needs. This doesn’t mean that you have to give in to what the
other person wants. It just means that you may well get more of what you want from treating the other person not as an object, but as a human being.
And — I almost forgot — you get to keep your humanity, too.
This
article contains information, not advice. It’s up to you to decide
whether or not the techniques described here make sense for you. For even MORE information on this or ANY of the
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