Without a careful and considered effort, it can be easy to fall into a sense of distrust of other people, and sometimes, outright dismiss them. Of course, the news is very good at showing us how and why other people aren’t to be trusted, or why you should always be weary of issues that could potentially strike you at any time. While this is not always untrue, it can give us a faulty picture of just how good and reliable the average person is.

Sometimes, the faults we consider in other people are projections of things we’re not happy about in ourselves. For this reason, it’s always good to take a step back, to avoid judging people too quickly or harshly, and to always give them the benefit of the doubt. This doesn’t mean we have to be foolish or any less protective over our safety and especially not the safety of our families, but it does mean opening our hearts just a little, especially when considering that we may not understand.

Focusing on seeing the beauty in people also gives you the chance to see beauty in yourself. If you can do that, then you’ll move through life with a little more grace. In this post, we’ll discuss a few essential techniques and practices for achieving that:

Try Not To Dismiss Others So Readily

It’s very easy to dismiss other people for no real reason at all. We’ve all done it. For instance, at a time when we may have had a sheltered worldview, we may have seen some people with full-body tattoos and looked down on them. We would never have that done, and besides, wouldn’t it hurt?

Then perhaps our parent enjoys a tattoo later on in life, and we realize that actually, we were a little bit silly dismissing someone for just expressing themselves. In general, we tend to dismiss others because either we cannot understand their choices, or because we’re fearful of the implications they could have outside of our comfort zone.

Of course, if someone is acting in a dismissive, nasty, hateful way, it’s not hard for us to form a negative impression of that person. But how often do we use concrete considerations in order to help us form opinions of people, outside of using our own biases to dismiss them? Both are possible and sometimes even common, but the latter is often far more frequent, and we may not even realize we’re doing it. For that reason, trying not to dismiss others so readily could be considered a golden rule for wellbeing, both in how we treat others, and ultimately how we treat ourselves.

Forgive Others If You Can

Some of us find that it’s very easy for us to hold a grudge against others. We may still never have forgiven our parents for dismissing us as children, or perhaps someone cut us up in traffic this morning and we still feel sore about it.

The chance that someone has absolutely greatly inconvenienced you is tremendously low. If someone does, then working through that in your own time is understandable. But for minor and even middling disputes, sometimes it’s a good idea to just forgive others if you can. This helps you close the matter, allows you to rise above the situation, and also gives you the chance to feel free of emotion.

A quote famously attributed to the Buddha once said “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to be harmed.” We can see, then, that forgiving others is as much part of our own self-work than it is forcing others to conform to our standards. You don’t need to be a pushover, but you can easily see how an approach like this can help you more easily see the beauty in others, as well as yourself.

Prize Honesty & Humility Above All Things

It’s important to recognize that seeing the beauty in others doesn’t mean abandoning all the standards we have for what we like about people in general. Some values and virtues are better than others, for instance. Commending someone on their patience is better than feeling victimized by their impatience.

It might be, then, that valuing honesty and humility above all things is a good way to see who you’d actually like to invest time into. This can be a great method of determining who you may wish to listen to, who you admire, and what kind of person you take inspiration from. It might be that a date is open with the medications they use from Simple Online Pharmacy in order to ensure you’re in the clear, or being the first one to help when a family member admits they’ve been having a tough time of it financially and mentally as of late can also be a worthwhile task.

When we reward and replicate the virtues we enjoy in other people, we can more easily support them and adopt these worthwhile values into our own lives. That, in itself, helps us become better people, inspiring others to do the same, and vice versa.

Don’t Be Afraid Of  ‘Scenes’ You’re Not Part Of

It’s very easy to dismiss ‘the other’ as people we’re not fond of, or people who have it all wrong. But sometimes, those impressions can often be quite unfounded. For instance, sometimes we may see people who like fast, aggressive music to seem a little bit out of sorts for us, with their wild styles of dress and different life perspective.

That is until you meet them, and see that they’re among some of the most friendly people you could ever meet. The same goes for having your children invited around for a playdate at the family of another schoolchild, perhaps those that come from a different ethnic background to you. While it’s not as if you were bigoted in any sense, being in a new environment like this can help you realize that most people are more similar than you think, despite cultural traditions seeming totally opposed.

Consider Their Life Story

An instructive thing to do from time to time is to watch people walk by on the street, perhaps while sitting at a cafe window, quietly minding your own business. You’ll see hundreds of people trotting past, and this gives you a chance to consider what their life story may be like and the challenges, hopes, dreams and fears they face.

Reflection in this sense can help you realize that famed sense of ‘sonder,’ that people are out there living their lives entirely independent of you, and without your approval. This can be humbling, and allow us to become more gracious. It will also show that despite the impressions you came to, we’re almost always completely off the mark regarding the life story of an individual. This way, instead of looking at people with a sense of knowing everything about them, we can remind ourselves that everyone has a history, and intents for the future.

This can help you respect others a little more, trusting them to find their proper way. It also softens us for the better.

Be The Decent Party

From time to time, we do meet people who may be trying us a little more than we’re comfortable with. If you can retain your sense of self and remain the decent party in this situation, then you’re more likely to find a comfortable conclusion, and less likely to think of this person as total waste or someone worth expending intense energy on.

This gives you strength, and it may even allow you to come to a sense of reconciliation later on. If you can hold back in this way, you can avoid the thousand assumptions about someone you’re not really sure of running around in your head, which often gives way to judgment.

With this advice, we believe you’ll be able to focus on seeing the beauty in other people anew.

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