How To Understand People

As we bid adieu to 2018 and welcome a new year, it's exciting to consider all the fresh, wonderful possibilities that await us. Whether you aim to lose weight, start a business, have a child with your partner, buy a new home, or simply read the slew of books collecting dust on your shelf, a new year affords us the opportunity to assess our goals and work toward them in earnest. And what better day to get cracking than on January 1? A new year means a clean slate -- a blank canvas waiting to be filled with your lines and splashes of color. While we're at it, why not make it into a masterpiece? Having a great year necessitates keeping oneself focused on the present . Resist the nagging urge to reflect on what you didn't accomplish or did wrong last year. Move on and focus solely on the ways you can make 2019 infinitely better than 2018. Aim for progress . Rather than comparing yourself to your peers, compare yourself to the person you were on December 31, 2017 and...

Chances are there's someone in your midst who carries an ego bigger than the state of Texas. They're heavily preoccupied with looking good in front of others. They can't bear to lose, whether a promotion to a colleague or a game of chess to a friend. They have an unquenchable thirst to come out on top, no matter the cost. Why is it that some people have such oversized egos?  The answer lies in something known as the egocentric bias . First coined in 1980 by Anthony Greenwald, a psychologist at Ohio State University, egocentric bias is the tendency to depend too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality. It stems from the psychological need to satisfy one's ego, which research suggests can be advantageous for memory consolidation. As it turns out, ideas, beliefs, and experiences are more easily recalled when they match one's own, inducing an egocentric perspective. The effects of egocentric bias can vary based...

Has anyone -- whether it be your partner, friend, relative, neighbor, or boss -- done you wrong this year? If so, heed this important end-of-year tip: Let it go . Start 2019 with a clean slate. Don't carry other people's drama and negativity with you into the new year. Let your hopes and dreams crowd out your fears and worries. Sure, we can never rid ourselves of all our concerns, but why not start the new year on a high note? If you can't excise from your life the people bringing you grief, e.g., your toxic boss, make it a New Year's resolution not to get hung up on their every word or move. Refuse to allow these people to sour your mood, lower your self-esteem, and eat away at your mental well-being. If we're not careful, we can become trapped in a vicious circle of questioning people's motives, possibly blaming ourselves in the process: Why did they yell at me over the phone? Why haven't they answered my texts? Why did they seem to ...

Whether it's our partner, a friend, or a relative, we should refrain from idealizing other human beings -- or it may come back to haunt us. Let's start with what "idealizing" means. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to idealize is to "give an ideal form or value to." In other words, it's the tendency to attribute ideal characteristics to things or people. There are quite a number of situations we can think of in which people regard others as being more perfect than they are in actuality. I'm sure you know at least one person who has taken a stab at online dating (perhaps it was you). The longer two people carry on exchanging pictures and talking on the phone -- without actually meeting in person -- the greater the potential for idealization. Why? Since you've never interacted with the individual in person, all you have to go by is what you've seen on your screen or heard by phone. You are most likely clueless as t...

How many people have you come across in your life who have been envious of something you possess or have accomplished? Maybe it's the new car you bought or the Hamilton tickets you managed to snag. Perhps it's the promotion you landed as a result of your hard work. Or perhaps they envy your fairytale-like marriage. While I've emphasized that material possessions don't bring us lasting happiness, you have every right to acquire and enjoy whatever you please. As long as you're not spending recklessly and hurting yourself or others in the process, what you buy with your hard-earned money is no one else's business. People should focus on themselves and quit worrying about what others are buying, whether it be cheap or expensive.  The problem is that human beings have this seemingly unshakeable tendency to compare themselves to other people.  Certain individuals can't live with the fact that others may have a better house, a prettier spouse,...

It's a question that many men and women perceived as "nice" -- ones who have struck out repeatedly in the dating market -- have been scratching their heads over for what seems like, well, centuries. Can being too nice make you less attractive to dating prospects? As with anything else, there's no simple answer, and a bevy of factors have to be considered. For starters, "too nice" for one person can mean something entirely different to someone else, just like we all have different opinions on what counts as too sweet or salty when eating different foods. In general, though, a person may be regarded as too nice if they exhibit one or more of the following behaviors: Being highly agreeable  Being a complete pushover by never standing up for oneself  Attempting to buy someone's affections by heaping them with gifts and compliments they probably don't deserve, at least not so early in the game  Trying to avoid disagreements at all costs L...

One thing is for people to blather on about the drama in their lives. Another is for them to try to whip up drama in ours. The latter is wholly unacceptable, and we should never stand for that. Whether it's a coworker who tries to turn you against someone at work who doesn't rub her the right way, someone you've begun dating who hasn't quite broken up with their ex, or a friend who tries to rope you into gambling or taking drugs, you should never take the bait. Never allow yourself to get wrapped up in other people's problems. While you certainly can lend a hand, their worries should not become your own. They have to resolve such matters themselves and leave you out of it -- otherwise, you may find yourself shouldering a heavy burden. Many people who find themselves down on their luck are so selfish as to try to bring others down with them, especially if the latter seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. Misery loves company, to be sure. In the worst ...

Society peddles the tired notion that one isn't truly content unless they're married or in a relationship. Our culture, as you've probably noticed, is highly relationship-centric. Valentine's Day, dating apps, celebrity weddings, juicy hookups bantered about at work. Our Facebook News Feeds replete with articles and memes pertaining to love and relationships, not to mention posts of people professing their love for their partner. We might as well call it what it really is: a craze. An obsession, if you will. There's no question that relationships are a wonderful thing. Who doesn't love to hear stories of couples getting engaged on the Eiffel Tower or celebrating their 50th anniversary? A person can derive a wealth of benefits -- physical, emotional, and financial -- from being partnered up. Provided one is in a healthy relationship, a person's significant other can greatly enrich their life, being there to cheer their successes and help them throug...

Relationships don't die a natural death. Their demise is brought on by selfishness, lies, neglect, and a lack of compassion and consideration toward one's partner.  In some relationships, only one partner is responsible for causing a rift, and in others, both partners are to blame. Unfortunately, some people expect their partner to do all the heavy lifting, leaving the other physically, mentally, and emotionally drained and effectively running the relationship into the ground.  If people don't want to do their fair share, why enter into a relationship at all? A relationship is a partnership between two individuals. Both of them invest in, maintain, and enhance the relationship so that each feels they're not just reaping benefits, but dispensing them to the other as well. In most cases, both partners put in comparable effort in the early stages of dating as they're getting to know one another.  It's when complacency begins to set in ...

People need to stop comparing themselves to others, or happiness will always elude them. Someone will always be smarter. Someone will always be more attractive. Someone will always be younger. Someone will always be more popular. But they will never be you. Society makes being "the best" out to be the Holy Grail, but is uniqueness not more important? We bring a unique combination of qualities, skills, and quirks to the table -- ones that make us who we are. By comparing yourself to other people, you're essentially saying there is a standard against which you wish to compare yourself. This, for many people, leads to a sudden urge to want to be more like others, thereby relinquishing key facets of their individuality. Sure, you might admire smart, health-conscious, or stylish people and wish to surround yourself with those of that ilk so as to learn a few things from them. However, that should never translate into abandoning the very goals, principles, attit...

You will never be good enough for everyone, but here's good news: You'll always be good enough for those people who deserve you. It's a certainty that you will come across people who have something to complain about. You're too quiet or too loud, too clean or too messy, too skinny or too fat, too lazy or too ambitious. It's nearly impossible to meet some individuals' exacting standards. But who says we have to meet such standards to begin with? The right people -- those who accept you for who you are -- will never press you to change. They'll appreciate you whether or not you drink, whether you gravitate toward books or sports, or whether you're bold or docile. (Of course, if you're engaging in dangerous behaviors -- like abusing alcohol or drugs -- they have every reason to goad you to change in that regard.) The right people will acknowledge whatever it is that makes you unique -- whether it's your passion for learning, quirky sen...