Loving the Irksome, Part 1

“How to love people who irritate you? Don’t pretend to love them, just understand that they are irritating you. Why are they irritating you? Simply because, they are not the way you expect them to be. They are not the way you want them to be. And in the same breath you also claim that you believe in God.”

—Sadhguru

It is quite common that we come across people in our daily lives who manage to rub us the wrong way. Interacting with people who irritate us can be quite tiresome, not to mention stressful. At the same time, there is no way to avoid them completely.

In the first part of our series on Loving the Irksome, we take a look at what Sadhguru has to say about people who irritate us and how to deal with them.

Sadhguru:

How to love people who irritate you? Don’t pretend to love them, just understand that they are irritating you. Why are they irritating you? Simply because, they are not the way you expect them to be. They are not the way you want them to be. And in the same breath you also claim that you believe in God. If you believe in God, then the person who irritates you also happens to be a creation of God, and he seems to be such a masterpiece that he can just irritate the hell out of you, isn’t it? So, don’t deceive yourself. Just see irritation is happening because you have already decided what is right and what is wrong. You have decided, “This is the right way to be.” If they’re some other way, they will irritate you first, then you will get angry, then you will hate them, then you will want to kill them. This is a natural progression simply because you are expecting everybody in the world to be like you. If everybody in the world were like you, could you be here? In your own home, if there was one more person like you, could you live in that house? Would it be possible? It’s very good that everybody in the world is the way they are

Any human being that you take here of this whole mass of people, they’re absolutely unique, isn’t it? Yes? They’re absolutely unique. The person who is sitting next to you right now, if you look at them, you will see there is no other human being like this person anywhere in this planet. There never was one, there never will be one. This is an absolutely unique human being. If you recognize that there is only one like this, it is such precious material, how can it irritate you? Just turn around and see, people sitting next to you are absolutely unique human beings. There isn’t another one like that, and it is such a miracle for you that today you are sitting next to this human being who is absolutely unique. Never before, never again on this planet. Where is the question of irritation? You’re blind, that is why you are irritated. You’re simply blind to life. You have not opened your eyes and looked at life, that is why you can be irritated. Otherwise how can anybody irritate you?

In the next part of this series, we will focus further on the importance of nurturing understanding in the various relationships we form with the people around us.