If you want someone to respect and follow your comments or criticism, then you have to avoid hitting their temper zone. We all have a scale inside; we only take comments if the other half of the scale is filled with respect and admiration. Do we always hear complaint after blame, for not getting enough respect, forgetting what they have sacrificed, helped, or accomplished in the past? If you want to make criticism, you should first say something approving to bring up their affections.
For example, do we always complain about poor cooking, but not getting any changes or improvements? The reason is we are putting all the blames on one side of the scale, and leaving the other half empty, an unbalanced scale means a frustrated and unsatisfied heart, then how can you expect the others to follow your comment. The correct method should be, say something encouraging first, for example, this dish is very tasty, but the other one is just a little bit salty, but the whole meal is still worth 90 points. Then people will be appreciative for your high mark and unbiased comments, and will be very willingly to improve their cooking next time to earn the extra 10 points.
If I like someone to read more useful books, newspapers or magazines, I will not criticize what they are reading right now are pointless, childish, time consuming and junk. Instead, I will ask them to lend me for reading after they finish, to know what they know, and to respect what they read. Then I will lend them what I read, to learn from each other, to have more different topics to discuss in the future, and enlighten them the importance of mutual respect.
We all like to be admired and encouraged, the proper admiration and encouragement are pleasing and delightful, and most people are willing to do something for you in return. Blaming and discouragement will bring out the opposite and negative effect, make us feel upset, depressed, and frustrated, and will lead to unpredictable rebellious behavior.
Admiration or encouragement doesn't mean flattery; you don't have to say something exaggerated or unrealistic. We seem to be pretty radical and biased in criticism, it is either very good or very bad, how come we can't say something in between. When someone talks about a movie, we usually hear it is too good or too bad, love it or hate it, others may feel depress and will start arguing with opposite views and points.
Why can't we cut the movie into pieces, tell others which parts I like the most, which parts are O.K., and which parts are the worst. A moderate point of view will be much easier to be accepted by the others, and will reduce conflict to the minimum.
If admiration will lead to arrogance, and then you can tell them arrogance will scare people from admiring, only modesty can earn the respect and admiration from others.
Attitude and manner of speaking are also the key factors in causing dispute. A loud, anxious, fast and impatience voice represents blame and anger, will have direct and instant negative effects to other's attitude and behavior. A soft and gentle voice will make us relax and be delighted, and will make our life, work and human relationship a lot better and easier. If you want someone to get mad and refuse what you ask, talk loud and be rough. If you want someone to be nice and do what you tell, be soft and gentle.
We all have an incorrect concept about using bad temper and talking tough and loud to convince others, but usually run counter to your desire and ends up as a blunder. This is not an incorrect method, but if we use it too often and too much, then the shocking and depressing effect will lose its power, and becomes a major demerit of your personality, and will lose the respect and obedience from others. If you want this method to be effective, use it only occasionally, being gentle, nice, understanding and forgiving in the other times, then people will do self-criticism for their poor behavior after provoking you.
Use a different point of view and level to deal with dispute. Since human beings are mostly self-center and conceited, we always use our own point of view and thinking to analysis or criticize others, but always misjudge, misunderstand and mishandle the cases. Most fatally, we try to overwhelm others with our very own point of views, fill with bias and conceit. Of course, to judge and handle correctly requires a lot of understanding and intelligence, which is not something we can learn in days. Therefore we have to focus on a different level of enlightenment to manipulate different difficult situations.
When we are arguing, we always focus on either the person or the subject. When we are focusing on the person, we will deny whatever he or she says, no matter how much is right or wrong. When we are focusing on the subject, we will use our own angles and point of views to look at the whole matter, which may sometime contradict to others' opinion, and lead to further intense argument. Therefore, we should try to focus on the humanity than on the person or the contents of the argument. The reason why we have different opinions or point of views may come from our education, knowledge and experience, but have direct influences from some of the common features of our characters, the 4 S's, selfishness, self-center, superiority and stubbornness.
For example, people with higher educational level and knowledge may sometimes intentionally or unintentionally show their self-center or superiority in conversation, and showing less eager and patience talking to those with less education and knowledge. A lot of time they will show no respect and just walk away, when they hear something they consider naive or low level. Even talking to the people on the same educational level, their temper and 4 S's will still drive them to intense argument, having both sides trying to win their points and depress other.
Actually, people from lower educational level may experience something similar, they will still discriminating other people with certain reasons. They are arguing, quarreling or using violence a lot more due to a temper and lack of patience.
The true reasons for causing the dispute are the 4 S's, their superiority, selfishness, self-center and stubbornness are triggering your fighting spirit and rebellion, to strike back, to deflate the enemy's arrogance, to blunt the edge of their advance and boost our own morale.
If both sides are working so hard on their opinions to defeat and deflate the other, why can't we point out directly it is their 4 S's causing the entire dispute. Pointing out that discriminating and not respecting others will trigger our rebellious nature and the argument with opposing opinions will go on and on forever, and any meaningful suggestion or opinion may become meaningless.
Therefore we should try talking with less comparison or discrimination, with more modesty and respect. Try to avoid calling others "Idiot", "Naive", or "You know nothing about this". You should be the first one showing your modesty and respect to other's opinion, leading others to do the same in return, rather than returning superiority for superiority, selfishness for selfishness, self-center for self-center or stubbornness for stubbornness. If the other side is returning evil for good, then you should point out no matter what he or she is doing, you will still return good for evil, return modesty and respect for any biased and unbiased criticism, to awaken his or her conscience for self-introspection. Ask people for their opinions and give them time to talk, be aware of their reaction when using personal comparison. Try pointing to everyone instead of pointing to any individual, try saying, "A lot of people are making the same mistake", instead of "You are the only one making this mistake".
Try not to entirely deny others' opinions, try to look at things from their viewpoint, and praise for the good parts. Even if you can't find anything valuable to praise for, you can still say, "You may be right or partially right, thank you for your opinions, I will thoroughly think about it later".
We always beat the dead horse, we always continue a battle that has been won, or argue a point that has been settled. You are once again adding fuel to the almost extinguished flame, and you are challenging his or her patience. Once they lose their temper, they may once again deny all your accusation, and you may have to argue all the points again. Therefore, once the other side stops arguing and apologizes, you should let go and switch to other topics.
Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, anger for anger; hate for hate, discrimination for discrimination. If you are tired of these, you can try respects for respects, encouragement for encouragement, support for support and love for love. And you can further try respects for disrespects, encouragement for discouragement, support for criticism, and love for hate.
The above revision should have been revised parts of your concepts and behavior. But in reality, you still cannot control your temper at the crucial moment, forgetting all of my revision and reacting with anger when your heart feels depressed. If you want to control your temper at the crucial moment, the only way to control it is to through constant practice.
Nobody teaches us the correct ways to control our temper and releasing our heart pressure throughout our childhood, we are only warned for temper control, but without any practical way to keep our emotion calm. The reason why we remember so much knowledge is through constant reading or reciting, go through these texts and methods again and again, try to practice the above methods and reaction inside your mind or with the help of a friend. Turn your dreadful memory into useful data, regroup your reaction and answers with constant practice, and make sure your practice will come out first before your temper, when you meet a similar situation in reality in the future.
Let's come down to a more detailed analysis. When we are mad or impatient, we always use expressions, like "chicken", "ass-hole", "son of a bitch", "idiot", etc., to hurt and humiliate someone, to express our anger and discontent for stupid and improper behavior, and expect the others to enlighten, apologize and rectify from their behavior. But things will usually go contrary to our wishes; these are the words violating human dignity and insulting our human nature, so we will fight with anger to reclaim our dignity.
From a different point of view, these expressions are actually happening in our daily life. In our entire life, how many times are we afraid to move on, to speak out, to apologize, to admit mistakes and to take responsibility? So we are all chickens once in a while. How many times have we said or done something annoying, hurting, humiliating, and acting really like an ass-hole or son of a bitch? How many times have we said something stupid, done something clumsy and acting like an idiot?
To be frank, we are all "chicken", "ass-holes", "son of a bitches", and "idiots" once in a while, these are part of our personality, and have nothing to be ashamed of. In another point of view, it is not bad to be a chicken sometimes, we should be afraid of aids, crime, drugs, to lose our family or love one, and to go to hell after death. Be an asshole and let it wide open, have all the harmful and dirty stuff (thinking or behavior) flush out from our bodies. Be an idiot to stay away from drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and trouble. We have to look for different answers and point of view to re-interpret these expressions, to prove them harmless, meaningless or meaningful to us, to completely disassemble the bombs inside our mind to prevent further explosion.
Try to look for buffer zone in every trash you hear, think of something smart which can buffer your temper or stubbornness. We shouldn't lose control or be influenced by certain words or motions, if someone intentionally call you chicken will provoke you to do something stupid for them, then you are truly an idiot at your wit's end. Some of the greatest leaders on earth have these kinds of perception and intelligence to handle trash talk and incisive criticism. Look at the former American president Bill Clinton handling his sex scandal and the incisive criticism from the press and the public, how he remained unruffled to swim against the current, and lived by his wits. If you don't try to lord it over someone, then someone will try to lord it over you.
If someone intentionally call you "Chicken", will provoke you to accept their challenge or do something stupid to them, then you may not be a chicken, but you are truly the most stupid idiot instead, simply one word can take control of you. If you want someone to stop calling you something you don't like, start calling those names in front of these people. For example, "You know, I am always an asshole, I am real dumb, I am an idiot all the time". If people know you no longer mind these words, then they will lose interest and stop using these words on you.
Our minds and temper shouldn't be controlled or influenced by certain words or motions, to make us lose control, to violate other people or the law, to be regret or repent, to sentence to jail, and let our stupidity and rash decisions destroy our life or loving relationship. Remember our minds are full of creativity, you should start thinking of something smart to amend others, instead of using anger or violence to shut the mouths of other people.
When I was in Canada, a very tall guy came to me and said, "How come you Chinese are so short?" Then I replied, "How come you guys are so tall? Is tall good?" At first, he was a bit shocked from my attitude and the way I replied, he thought for a short while, and then replied, " Sometime too tall is very inconvenient, I always bumped my head, and hard to find suitable clothing. I don't like people discriminating us for saying tall guys are slow in reaction, I can move real fast". And then I asked him the reason for hating Chinese, he replied, "I had a group of Chinese close friends before, I always heard them calling one of the guy "shorty" in Chinese. Once I called the guy "shorty" in English, he was very mad and thought I have discrimination. After that, they never talked to me again. You guys are annoying and despicable." I said, "He might not mind so much if other shorties called him shorty, but if a real tall guy called him shorty, because of the significant difference in the height, he might feel discrimination. You are lucky for being so tall, most of the shorties have a strong sense of inferiority and are very touchy about subjects about their height. Please forgive him for his rudeness, and try to understand his difficulties." After that, we became very good friends, and he started making Chinese friends again.
One thought to hell, and one thought to heaven. I could add fuel to his fire and make him discriminate and hate us more and more, or I could extinguish his fire for explaining the differences in point of views and the causes of misunderstanding, with patience, heart and wisdom, to solve the problems and crisis.
If you think these are something hard to do and personalities are hard to change, then you are probably too modest and insulting yourselves. Look back at yourselves 10 years ago, were you younger, touchier and less patience? Don't tell me you haven't changed in 10 years, you should have improved a lot in ten years time, but you just may not aware of the changes. If a stupid guy like me can control my temper and say something like these, are you sure these are really that hard for you to do?
If someone say, "You are childish, you are acting like a fifteen year old boy", "You are terrible", then I will reply, "Thank you for your praise, that's very nice of you. Actually I am extremely childish and extremely terrible, I am acting like a five year old kid, what you are saying is really flattering". How are you going to respond to what I say? Isn't this a lot better than yelling back, "You are childish, you are acting like a ten year old, you think you are great? You are just an asshole". We can reply with wisdom, we can use a lot of surprising gags to delight everyone, to pour oil on troubled water, to get away from the blames and relax the tension.
Do not bring any burden or dispute back home from work, unless you want to spread it around to everyone in your household. If your love one is asking, try to control your temper and be patience, speak softly to tell them to leave you alone. To other family members, please be understanding and stop testing his or her patience and keep asking for the reason of the burden, try not to add fuel to the fire, give him or her some times to rest and be alone.
If someone is acting insane and losing control, and my ration, patience and logic cannot stop them, then I will reverse my role to push them further down. I will agree on all their points, and further make a stormy sea stormier, telling them what they are saying ain't mean enough, they could be more harsh, more terrifying and more radical. Telling them to add insult to injury and keeping their evil thinking going, to further add fuel to the flame, and finally scaring and awakening them all the worst consequences they are heading to.
For example, if he says, "I hate her being so mad at me, this is her fault, this is over, I will not see her anymore". Then I will say, "Yeah, it is all her fault, you never make any mistake, so you are right to put all the blames on her, she only made one simple mistake, and you should burn her at the stake. Now you should make her life miserable, make her crying, make her upset, and make her hate you for the rest of your life. You shouldn't learn to forgive, and to give up your anger, you should learn to hate, to revenge, and to be evil".
If my sincerity, love, tolerance, logic and rational explanation can not cool him down, then I will be switching from angel to devil, using radical approaches to push him to enlightenment. Sometimes, only the big devil can tame those little evils in your hearts.
My name is John, and my moniker is toilet, one of the dirtiest meanings for any name. Therefore, I am the John who can take anything dirty, and I can help removing the garbage from a human body. You are welcome to polish me anytime, to keep me clean and fresh. If you are mad with humiliating monikers or criticism, try to make them meaningful and interesting, use your wisdom to hit them between the eyes.
If my mom doesn't listen to me, I will say, "Don't be naughty, mom, be a good girl, O.K., you should listen to your son, don't give your son a hard time". If she is still not listening, and then I will say, "Now I understand the difficulties to be a parent, now I know what rebellion is all about". She said I was tricky, and then I said, "If you don't want me to win with wisdom, I can use your old way, to win with bad temper and yelling. So which way you prefer?"
Once I had a huge argument with my sister, and I suddenly hug her and said, "How come we are saying and doing something stupid to hurt each other? You are a good sister and I love you very much, we shouldn't be doing this, we should love and forgive each other". Then suddenly she cried in tear on my shoulder and said, "We are good brother and sister, we are wrong in quarreling, we should love each other and keep a good relationship, woo woo, I love you, brother".
Once I discussed with a friend about economy, he said, "I have lost confidence with the economy, the economy is getting worse, and we should spend less money in eating and daily wear. I am predicting the economy will get worse and worse next year". Then I said, "We need to have full confidence with the economy, if more and more people raise up their spending to help the economy growth, then we will all benefit from it. If we cut our spending, the economy will shrink further and further, and you may lose your job for this reason. Do you really want your future prediction to be correct? Or you want to follow my advice, and start telling everyone to increase their spending to help our economy".
When I was studying in a Christian boarding school in Canada, I said something silly to provoke my table-head of the dinning table. She gave me a real hard time every time I dined with her, she took away my food, and forced me to talk in English during eating. One night I told her, "I apologized for my childishness and what I had said, everyday you guys taught me to forgive, to love and to have the spirit of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. I have tried to show my respect and compensate for what I had done wrong. But I don't feel any love or forgiving; instead I feel hate and revenge from you. Please tell me what I can do to improve our relationship". The next morning, her attitude to me was totally different. One of the staff told me, the other four table-heads sitting next to us heard my conversation, they thought that I was right and gave her a good lesson.
Temper can not help you to win your argument; instead it will only aggravate the whole situation, and set you two into deeper trouble or divergence. One of the winning ways is to find the weaknesses of each case, to find something everyone will agree and hard for any individual to say no or deny.
In the last few examples, the weaknesses in the mother's case will be, I let her learned what it was like to have the shoe on the other foot, she was experiencing the same things that she had caused me to experience, I was using her methods on her. The weaknesses in the sister case will be the deep affection among sibling, and the linking of flesh and blood. In the economy case will be the contradiction between prediction and truth. In the boarding school case, propagating and not following the true spirit of Jesus Christ was her mortal wound.
These examples are also creating a sure win no lose situation. I am giving them the choice(s) no one can refuse, no matter which way they go they just can not slip through my fingers, and I will be the final winner for sure. My mom didn't feel too pleasant when I used her manner of speaking and words on her, but she would feel even more unpleasant if I used her bad attitude and temper on her. Therefore, no matter which ways she went she was still inside my palm.
In the sister's case, I didn't even need to say sorry to win the quarreling or end the war. I only needed to tell her the bad consequences would happen to our relationship, to awaken both of us what we were doing were wrongs; our conscience would stop our quarreling automatically.
In the economic case, everyone was hoping for better economy, but what they were doing were actually killing the economy and contradicting their wishes. Do you want to start spreading this negative thinking, and proving your prediction to be correct to have down slope economy and job cutting one day? Or you want to start spreading positive thinking; to increase the spending, to help the economy gets back to the rising track? How many of you can say no to my suggestion?
In the boarding school, I was actually talking to all four table-heads. If she didn't confess what she did, the other two table-heads would help me to advise and correct her. I didn't run away, I just stroke the iron while it was hot. She was just reaping what she had sown.
Are you guys thinking these are very hard to learn and follow? But I can tell you, these are a lot easier than getting mad, quarreling, beating people, revenging each others, brain wars, anxiety, worrying, sleepless night, nerves break down, regret, repent, and aging speed up. Unless you really enjoy what you are experiencing right now and want to continue like these for the rest of your life. Comparing to ten years ago, you have unintentionally improved so much already. Right now, you are only intentionally speeding up the whole process, through constant reading and practices instead of going through those lively, painful and bloody experiences that are helping you to get mature. Now you can do it in a few days to a few weeks instead of going through years and decades to understand humanity and grow up.