Hostility: it’s probably not about you

To what extent is boredom and dissatisfaction behind picking fights?

If the author and journalist Gaby Hinsliff  is correct or if what she suggests is right sometimes, we ought be able to make very useful shifts in our responses to much of others’ “difficult” behaviours:  annoyance, antagonism, hostility, nastiness, unkindness, spite, meanness, malice, malevolence,  plain old bad-temper and other forms of poking sticks at people.

I believe she is right and that the insight, coupled with another simple shift in perception, can make a very significant difference to the workplace environment when others seem intent on well-poisoning or being difficult ( behaving in ways we find challenging), and do much to facilitate conflict resolution.

Next time others pick on you, behave unkindly, give you unwarranted criticism or behave in other negative ways towards or around you, consider this possibility:  

So much . . . vitriol boils down to nothing more than bored people, disappointed with their own lives, poking others with sticks.

So writes Hinsliff, in a January 2014 Guardian Weekly article. She continues:

Boredom is [ . . . ] secondary only in its capacity for damage to the self-destructive things we do to relieve it:  eating too much, getting hammered, picking fights (virtual or in real life), taking stupid risks, having affairs, mooching mindlessly around the shops buying things we don’t really need.  At its purest it isn’t just having nothing to do but being deeply dissatisfied with what there is to do, and with yourself.  To be properly bored you need to think you deserve to be happier than this, at least as happy as all those other people seem to be. 

It’s a short step from there to resenting anyone who do seem to have meaning and purpose in their lives.

But there’s more to this matter than boredom and low-level dissatisfaction. It’s worth recognising that we all have differently creative ways of expressing our deepest problems; and that forms of lashing-out are very often unaware calls for others’ help or understanding about unhappy situations or lives.  Keep that in mind the next time you are tempted to pick a fight. And this:  when we’re at our least likeable, kind or loving is probably when we most need compassion and understanding.

It’s not an attack until I defend myself (and then it is) is a thought and a perspective that can help us reach out, respond helpfully or at least stay confidently unaffected rather than choose to attack  in return. In interpersonal relationships, believing that “attack is the best form of defence” can quickly turn a challenging encounter into a very messy, more complex situation.

It’s not an attack until I defend myself, is one of many helpful attitudinal refinements examined and guided in my most recent book, Collaborative Dialogue. While it’s a simple idea, it’s not necessarily easy to bring into focus and hold when it’s most necessary.  If you need help with how to do that before someone next picks on you, check out what the book has to offer.

Tom Watkins