by William Taboas, M.A. 

I live in New York City and I must confess, I have a hard time dealing with some of the people here in the city. Don’t get me wrong, there are difficult people everywhere in the world. But the variety of people NYC has to offer is limitless, making any sort of adaptation to the annoyances that come with the territory and its people an onerous task. So, when I came across Albert Ellis’ CD recording on “How to deal with Difficult People”, I made it my homework to listen, practice, and now, write about, what I learned so far. Here we go.

While I consider myself for the most part an easy going and flexible person who works hard on pursuing a life that abides by the philosophy of rational living, I am surrounded by people who probably don’t exercise the same philosophy or don’t have the time for it (a la true NYC style!). Difficult people, to quote Ellis, are rigid, damning, critical, often procrastinating, defensive, don’t face their problems, childish, argumentative, stubborn, vindictive, bizarre, grandiose, mean, boring, repetitive, irresponsible, resistant to authority, often depressed, frequently moralistic, inert, passive, passive-aggressive, neurotic, and I could go on… “Now the problem is, not to look so much at them, but to face the fact that when you get upset about them, you really have a problem about your upsetness.”   They do not upset you, you let them upset you.

Ellis recommends disputing the “shoulds” about why they have to be the way we want to be, or the “should” that they shouldn’t behave the way they do. So I had a couple of opportunities to do so. I had a choice either to upset myself over dealing with a difficult person, or dispute the demands, and behave assertively. I didn’t get my way, but I didn’t upset myself. They have a right to be difficult, whether we like it or not. It is not awful.  They are fallible human beings, who have the right to be as wrong, stubborn, and recalcitrant as they want to be, and demanding that they should be otherwise is ludicrous. People in NYC will behave as they want to behave, and if I expect and demand that those difficult NYC people to behave differently, I will inevitably become angry.  Instead, I chose to just be disappointed and frustrated with those people, because when I do so, I can then focus on interacting with the splendor and worldly variety NYC has to offer. I don’t have to waste my time being unhealthily angry.

William Taboas, M.A.