Are People Disposable?

I've been observing the big city trend of people treating people like disposables, choosing to discard relationships rather than in investing in them. I thought it was aloof of this nasty tactic,

until I noticed that I'd started doing it myself.

They started calling us the "throw-away society" back in 1995.

We consume. We dispose.

Take-away cups, take-out meals, the single use little milk cartons you get on the airplane, a plastic bag just to carry your groceries home, all that packaging for that tiny new gadget....

We have gotten very used to the single-use concept when it comes to things, has it filtered into how we treat people?

Have you noticed an inclination to just let go of a friendship when it gets hard?

Have you ever dropped a guy you were dating, because he displayed a little habit that annoyed you? (I'm super guilty of this one).

Have you ever turned your mind against a new co-worker because they did one odd thing?

Have you noticed having the thought about a person, “I'll drop that one and just get another?”

I used to believe that I sat solely on the victim side of this "throw-away"thinking. Having experienced it mostly in the work world in Sydney, I put it down to having moved to a big city where there are so many people competing for a job that once my performance varied from expectations, I was sent to the chopping block, my replacement already on order.

I blamed the disposable mindset of this first world country and thought myself immune to such a selfish bias.

But in the past few weeks, life handed me a mirror and showed me that I too was infected with this dangerous way of being in the world.

Two separate incidents happened in my personal life where I chose to get rid of a new acquaintances rather than taking a chance on investing in them.

At first I reasoned that I was looking out for myself. I argued that sustaining those relationships would have been to the detriment of my emotional well-being, so it was my right to call it quits early in.

There was some truth in that belief. My well-being is rightly my number one priority but my relationships, be they new or old, could be my second.

Alongside the thought about my best interest, could swim the notion that there is also great value in investing in people.

So while it may be appropriate to end a type of association with a person, there could be a way to do so that preserves the overall relationship. Instead of disposing of people brusquely, how about calling up the courage to have a conversation with them about your disparity? A conversation with the intention of preservation over disposal.

There, I said it “courage.” That is the real reason we are tempted to treat each other as disposable. It takes courage to have these confronting conversations and usually we are just too afraid to do so.

We lie to ourselves saying, “Oh, I just can’t be bothered.” That phrase is meant to say to whomever overhears, that we have more important things to tend to. But what we really can’t “be bothered with" is the personal development process of facing our fear of confrontation and addressing this issue. The thinking is that it's easier to avoid the discomfort.

It’s easier to not stretch ourselves.

But what I have come to learn this is that,

I am the one that loses when I don’t make the effort.

I miss out on building the muscle of being in relationship.

I miss out on learning from another’s point of view. I miss out on how enriched a relationship can become through conflict and compromise. I miss out on having that potential new friend add value to my life.

Sometimes we are so myopic in our thinking about how someone can benefit us, that if it doesn’t happen in the exactly the way we hand in mind, we call it quits.

I am deciding that I don’t want to live in that state of mind that anymore.

Because although I have had the experience of people disposing of me quickly, I have also had the experience of people investing in me and our relationships despite and through disagreements ... and my, oh my... Those relationships have blessed me beyond measure.

So how can you do that?

How can you inculcate a practice of treating people as valuable rather than disposable? As the golden nuggets, that they really are.

Firstly, you can be curious. The behaviour of a friend that has annoyed you was most likely not caused by you. It is probably due to some unconscious ingrained belief or practice on their side. Yes, it may prove itself to be evidence that you are really not a fit for each other. But the first step is finding out what lies beneath the behaviour and if they are open to making an adjustment for the sake of the relationship. Replace judgement with curiosity.

Here is a minor example , I had a new lodger staying in my home. We share a bathroom and I had a hunch that she was using my washcloth, because ever time I went into the bathroom it was always wet.

At first I was furious I that she was using a personal item of mine. (For God knows what!)

But when I asked her about it, it turned out that she thought it was a cloth for her to clean up the water overflowing from the bath and she didn’t want to leave a mess. Her intention was actually to be helpful and keep the place as clean as I had asked. I could have sat seething in my erroneous assumption...

What a good thing, I asked.

Where might you allowing an assumption to cause havoc?

The second thing you can do is be gentle. When we wait until things have piled up before we say anything, we are likely to come to these conversations with a degree of angst. Calm you spirit and your mind before you have the talk.

Take Kendrick Lamar's advice, “Sit down. Be humble."

A state of anger or irritation will only trigger defensiveness in the other person. What do you need to do, in order to be the calmest version of yourself when you come into this conversation?

Applying calm and curiosity, are they key tools in shifting from treating people as disposables to valuable lifetimes assets. Sometimes, it is completely appropriate to quickly end a relationship that is not serving you. However, I encourage to ask yourself how you can give someone a chance.

There is so much you can gain by simply being curious and gentle. After all, you would want someone to do that with you.

Let’s dispose of this ‘people are disposable mindset’ and remember that it just might take a little digging to see their gold.

#howtohandlepeople #howtotreatpeoplewell #howtobekind #howtohavefriends #howtomakefriends #friendships #howtomaintainfriendships