June 5
In the morning, say to yourself in advance: I shall meet the meddlesome, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the envious, the unsociable. All this befalls them through ignorance of the good. But I can be harmed by none of them — nor can I be angry with my kin: we are born to work together, like feet, hands and eyelids.
Meditations II.1
Listening mode
In the morning, say to yourself in advance: I shall meet the meddlesome, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the envious, the unsociable. All this befalls them through ignorance of the good. But I can be harmed by none of them — nor can I be angry with my kin: we are born to work together, like feet, hands and eyelids.
Anyone who prepares for trouble is caught off guard by it less often. If you already know that someone will talk over others in a meeting, the interruption affects you less. It merely confirms what you expected. That can be a relief.
But expectations don't only protect; they also pre-sort. Once someone is seen as difficult, you listen to them differently. A curt sentence then sounds like condescension, a follow-up question like mistrust. Whatever doesn't fit that picture, you hardly notice.
The difference may lie in what you are bracing yourself for. You can prepare for a kind of behaviour without having already made up your mind about the person. The one makes you calmer. The other merely makes you detached, and detachment is easily mistaken for equanimity. Nothing hurts you any more, but you no longer expect anything either. It is hard to work together in that frame of mind, even if everyone stays polite.
And sometimes, on that particular day, nobody talks over anyone. You notice only late, because you were waiting for it the whole time.
