Author: Avery Rogers

Why People Are Rude and Unkind (and Why It’s Not About You)

“How people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.” ~Paulo Coelho

By nature, I am a happy, optimistic, idealistic person. I have always been one to look on the bright side and see the good in people. My usual philosophy in life is that the world is full of brightness, love, and possibilities to seize.

Recently, though, my philosophy began to fade in the face of a mild depression.

I began to cry a lot and retreat into myself rather than being social and opening up, which only furthered the problem. I felt alone, miserable, and, try as I might, I could not regain that feeling of the world being beautiful.

I felt like something had crawled into my brain and flipped all the positive switches off and the negative ones on. I felt hopeless, like it was more of a disease than a feeling.

Before the depression, I was a kind, gentle, and compassionate person. Sometimes I was even too gentle, afraid to bring up anything that might offend someone else or damage our relationship.

I didn’t understand how other people could be mean, rude, or offensive toward strangers or friends. I took it personally when people affronted me or were curt with me, believing they were truly out to get me for something I’d done.

When people were mean, I figured it was a personal choice, that it was a conscious decision to stop caring about other people’s feelings and opinions.

When I became depressed, though, my temper shortened and I felt far more irritable.

I had little patience for anything, and I lived in a constant state of anxiety about social interactions. Whenever I engaged in conversation with someone else, I assumed they found me boring, annoying, or self-obsessed, and it sent me even further into my sadness.

I started to become rude and unkind myself. I lashed out at people, or, more commonly, gave them passive aggressive excuses for distancing myself from them.

I even became prone to insulting people as a way of protecting myself if they didn’t like me.

I didn’t make a conscious decision to be mean. I didn’t wake up in the morning and think, “Today, I am going to hurt someone’s feelings.” It just happened in the moment when I was feeling especially down on myself.

Most of the people I was rude to were actually friends of mine, people I liked and had nothing against.

This is no excuse for rudeness, offensive behavior, or being unkind to other individuals. I am not proud of the way I’ve acted, and I’m not suggesting you follow in my footsteps, but it did give me a new perspective on other people I come across who are less than kind.

When someone is rude for no reason, especially a stranger, it’s rarely a personal assault, even if you accidentally did something to irritate them.

People aren’t mean for the sport of it, or because they are against you; people are mean to cope.

Being unkind, more often than not, is a reaction to anger with ourselves or our perceived inadequacy. When I was rude to other people, it was because I was afraid they wouldn’t like the nice me. I didn’t mind if they were angry at the fake, unkind me, because it really wasn’t me.

I felt unlovable, undesirable, and antisocial, and I needed a way to cope with these feelings by giving myself an alter ego that deserved to be disliked for reasons I could understand.

When you find that people are being rude to you in your everyday life, they are really being mean to themselves.

They have likely convinced themselves that they are unworthy of love, and that is the biggest tragedy of all.

You don’t have to tolerate it when others are not nice, but it’s not something to take personally.

You don’t have to internalize the meanness as a fault of your own. You can simply recognize that the person being rude is struggling with their own problems, and needs a way to cope with them.

You cannot control the actions and behaviors of others, only your personal reactions to them.

If you yourself are the one who has been unkind, it is time for self-reflection. Why do you attack people? What are you trying to protect yourself from?

In my case, I got depressed because I felt socially awkward and I began losing friends. After that, I shied away from social gatherings, only augmenting the problem.

I constantly thought negative things, such as “Nobody likes you,” “Who would want to be your friend?” and “You are not worthy of the friends you have.” I created a toxic environment inside my own head, and it wasn’t based in reality.

I knew I had to change my outlook, so I pushed myself to see the good in myself and the reasons why I’m likable; as a result, I began to see the good in others again too.

It’s not an easy process, and for many, it requires therapy and months of time. However, you can begin your journey back to kindness by being kinder to yourself.

Listen closely to your destructive, self-critical thoughts. Are they based in reality, or are you fabricating them?

If you criticize yourself because you feel guilty about things you did in the past, work on nurturing self-forgiveness, just as you’d forgive a loved one for those same mistakes.

If you criticize yourself because you were raised to believe you were a bad person, recognize this isn’t true, and know that you can choose to heal and challenge this belief as an adult.

Try to look at yourself from an outside perspective and remind yourself of all the unique and beautiful qualities you possess and have the ability to share with the world.

With enough time and effort, you will begin to see the pattern in your unkind behavior and its link to your own anger at yourself.

Once you can hone in on your feelings about yourself, you can begin to make conscious decisions to be kind to others instead of lashing out as a coping mechanism.

I have always unfalteringly held the belief that people are inherently good, and only do bad things in reaction to bad situations.

The most important thing to remember, whether you are receiving or giving unkindness, is that you are inherently good, too, and deserve to be loved, no matter what you or someone else tells you.

June 21, 2021
The Self-Analysis Trap: Stop Dissecting Your Every Thought and Action

“Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible.” ~Eugene Ionesco

We are taught from a very young age that it is our responsibility to reflect on the motives behind our actions and behaviors. From the time we can form sentences, we are asked the questions: “Why did you make that choice?” and “What made you do that?”

These questions often follow bad behavior and punishment. Our parents were trying to teach us, with the best of intentions, that we are responsible for our own actions.

This is a necessary lesson for young children, who are discovering their autonomy and the consequences of their behavior in a social world.

To a certain point, we should be held responsible for our actions, by others and ourselves. A conscientious person practices self-reflection and recognizes the origin and causes of thoughts and feelings when possible.

But for some of us, myself included, it feels like every thought and behavior needs to be analyzed.

Self-reflection, rumination, and justification fill my day and keep me up late at night. In order to maintain a sense of self-control and discipline, I dissect every emotion I feel and every action I take, all the while building a psychological narrative for my life.

For a long time, my drive to understand my behavior was an asset. I could explain my actions and thoughts more maturely than other kids, and adults prided me on my reflective nature.

When I was younger, I was blessed with mental health. Because my mind was functioning correctly and promoting the right behaviors and feelings, it was easy for me to explain and justify my actions. For the most part, they were appropriate and positive.

If I did act slightly out of line or overreact to a situation, I could assemble a psychological justification for it. Whether I dipped into parental relationships, miniature traumas from kindergarten, or a mere misunderstanding, I always managed to justify my behavior with sound psychological reasoning.

I thought of myself as my own personal therapist, totally capable of unearthing the intricate details of my inner psyche.

I perceived myself to be in total control of my feelings and my life. My brain was subject to my willpower. Most importantly, I was never at a loss when asked the question: “Why did you do that?”

The summer after I turned sixteen, my mental health began to unravel. I began to use my copious willpower and self-control to lose some weight and increase my fitness level.

At first, I did have control of my weight loss, and my brain’s intentions lined up with my conscious goals. I looked great, I felt great, and I hadn’t faltered a single day in my diet and exercise routine.

Then, some time in August, my weight-loss spiraled out of control. I became more restrictive and ramped up my exercise. My behavior, once a matter of conscious decision, was inexplicable to me. The thoughts in my head, centered on weight loss and extreme exercise, were loud and unintelligible to me.

For a while, I kept these thoughts quiet, telling myself that I would soon get control of my brain. I didn’t want to admit to myself or others that I had lost control of my thoughts and feelings.

I felt weak and stupid because I couldn’t understand my own behavior, and I felt the need to punish myself for failing to comprehend my mental state. Unfortunately, the easiest way for me to punish myself was to lose more weight and push myself even harder in my exercise.

My parents and other adults in my life did notice that I was losing weight, and asked me what was going on.

I cycled through faulty lines of logic—school stress, loneliness, a desire to be “healthy” taken too far—but I knew that none of these explanations was entirely correct. I would tell those around me that I had finally figured out the true root of my restrictive eating, only to continue the next day.

Nearly a year after this began, one of my favorite teachers suggested that we have a talk about my mental health. I told him about the craziness of the past year, and came clean with the fact that I didn’t understand my own mind anymore. I apologized profusely, waiting for him to question me about my social, emotional, and academic life to find answers.

Instead, he told me something I will never forget:

“Avery, you don’t have to understand. No one can really understand everything that they say or do. We aren’t supposed to figure everything out, because life is messy and not everything can be analyzed and justified. Some things are just incomprehensible.”

Some things are just incomprehensible. Hearing this lifted a huge weight from my shoulders. It was okay to rest in a state of unknowing, to breathe, even in the midst of confusion.

After this conversation, I was finally able to accept that my brain is only partially open to my conscious analysis. I can justify some of my actions, but sometimes I will feel or think certain things that can’t be rationally explained. I realized that I am allowed to understand only a fraction of what it means to be human.

In lieu of our talk, I stopped trying to justify my behavior, and instead focused on what I could control: my reaction to my thoughts and feelings. When thoughts enter my head, I can decide how to respond to them, even if I can’t understand where they came from or why they are surfacing in the moment.

Paradoxically, accepting that I do not and cannot justify all of my thoughts and behaviors has been the single most important step in recovering my weight and my mental health.

I no longer need to punish myself for failing to understand. I can love myself without absolutely knowing myself, just the way I love others without understanding their every thought and action.

At first, when talking to my family and friends, I expected them to be disappointed in me when I confessed that I couldn’t make sense of my feelings and behavior. Amazingly, the opposite happened: People felt closer to me than ever before, and found me more relatable because I too struggled to understand myself.

The truth is, none of us will ever fully grasp the origin and cause of our every thought, feeling, and action. Neurologically speaking, we actually aren’t supposed to; scientists now know that we can only infer and predict many of our actions, just as we predict the actions of others based on limited information.

Letting go of our constant self-analysis and rationalization is scary at first for people like me, who take pride in self-control and reflection.

However, by accepting that you cannot know or explain your whole self, you liberate yourself from the constant burden of rumination. You are free to control what you can control—your reactions to thoughts—and to let the rest come and go.

Next time you ask yourself, or someone asks you, “Why did you do that?” you have the right to say, “I don’t know” if the answer truly eludes you.

Of course, in some situations, it will be necessary to get to the root of a problem, especially when dealing with relationships. Even so, you have the right to not know yet; some feelings and habits can only be understood with time and distance.

It’s okay to tell others that you need time and space to process your thoughts, and that, for the time being, you cannot offer a succinct explanation.

They say that the only thing as complicated as the universe is the human brain. Both are chaotic, awe-inspiring, rife with contradictions, and impossible to fully comprehend. That is what makes them, and, by extension, life, so exciting and beautiful.

September 7, 2016
Accepting Delays and Appreciating the Gift of Empty Time

“Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.” ~Eckhart Tolle

A few weeks ago I had a soccer game about a half-hour away from my house, in the middle of nowhere.

Grumbling about the heat and the length of the game, I walked down to the field where my team was seated under a tent. In truth, I love playing soccer, but for some reason I was annoyed at how big a chunk of my day it took.

“Hey,” someone said to me, “the game’s delayed forty-five minutes. We’re just going to sit and wait it out.”

I walked to the portable bathroom, plunked my soccer bag down, and teared up in frustration. How dare the team, the sport, the world violate my time?

I walked back over to my team, fuming inside. I thought about the homework I still had left, the near hour I could have spent writing or playing guitar or being quiet and meditative. But I was stuck on a dirt patch miles away from home, sitting in my soccer clothes, with nothing to do but wait.

Then I thought of the radio show I’d been listening to in the car on the way there. It was about Taoism and the importance of accepting what exists and the natural order of things. The world, the host declared, is in itself perfect, and when we submit to the circumstances of the world we can find peace.

Sitting there on the field, I forced myself to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and feel the wind settle on my skin. For the first time, I was accepting the unfilled time life had offered me rather than fighting it.

Meditating on the field was incredible. In that moment, I felt more alive and present than I ever have meditating in my own home.

Unlike at home, I was submitting to the natural order of things and my reality. Rather than building time for meditation, I was receiving it.

I don’t know a single person who doesn’t consider themselves busy. We live in a world of technology and mobile devices that allow us to be working constantly. Our biggest rival is time, and our most formidable fear is running out of time before deadlines, projects, and our own eventual demises.

Because of the finite amount of time we have on this planet, I always thought of time as something I had to organize and maximize. I planned my week and activities so I could have large chunks of unstructured time to get things done. I avoided having short periods of empty time like the plague.

The more I structured my time, the more stressed I became. I was frugal with my time like I would be with money.

I was miserable in the face of rescheduling and spontaneous events. Everything the world threw at me threatened to destroy my entire week’s plans. The more I tried to maximize my time, the more I felt like a victim to time itself.

The spontaneity of the world became my enemy. In trying to use every moment to its fullest, I had turned myself against the present moment and the natural order of things.

That day on the soccer field changed me in a profound way. That day, I let go of my schedule, my compulsive need to structure my time, and my hatred of the ever-changing world. I embraced the moment that was given to me and allowed myself to be immersed in the time and space I occupied.

I had never before recognized that I was in a constant battle against time.

I now see this battle playing out every single day in my life. I get stressed whenever I have five minutes to “kill” without my computer or cell phone on which to do my homework.

These empty moments threaten us because we don’t know how to accept the emptiness that life offers us.

In all of our haste to complain about such moments, we miss the opportunity they offer us to tune into the world and submit to its natural perfection. We miss the truth: that every moment, not just the ones we set aside for meditation, can be used to appreciate and revel in the present.

Emptiness is not evil. Emptiness allows us to breathe, feel, and accept the world as it is.

Ironically, I always wanted more time in which to meditate. I felt like I could never find a chunk of free time in which to simply enjoy the present moment. Now, I realize that they are all around me, but I fill them with anxiety instead.

If you’re tired of feeling like time is against you, worn down from all the frustration you’ve felt toward the world and the circumstances taking your time, you must back down from the fight. The world will always win.

Fortunately, if you accept the world and the time you are given rather than rebelling against it, you also win. That is the perfection of the world: we benefit most when we let the world carry us.

That is not to say that making plans and organizing your time are useless endeavors. It is important that, as a society, we continue to put time into our jobs and families. I am not preaching a breakdown of schedule, but an acceptance of change.

Instead of using meditative strategies only in the comfort of your home or nature, find the beauty of the present moment in the time the world gives you to be still.

Feel your weight in the seat of your car and the smoothness of the wheel in your hands when sitting in traffic. Close your eyes and feel your lungs expanding when someone is running late for a meeting.

Spend those interim moments of inaction in your life being at peace with the world rather than grumbling at your watch. Those minutes add up, day by day, into all those minutes you wish you could spend meditating instead of sitting in the office.

Empty time is not forced upon us; it is given to us. Empty time is a gift. Yield to it and accept it, and you will find yourself more in tune with the present moment and more accepting of life and the world.

The present moment is a gift that we are always receiving. Our choice is whether to deny the gift and suffer, or open it and feel the world’s perfection within and around us in the ever-present now.

Time for a break image via Shutterstock

November 5, 2015
How to Stop Feeling Inadequate and Let Go of Heavy Expectations

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” ~Charles Dickens

When I was seven years old, my parents had me take an IQ test for an application to a private school near our new home.

I vaguely remember sitting with the proctor, answering question after question about vocabulary and spatial recognition. To seven-year-old me, the test was nothing more than a fun logic puzzle, and I delighted at each question I knew the answer to, bright eyed and enthusiastic.

While I don’t recall my exact score, the numbers were unusually high—in fact, so high that the proctor expressed her surprise to my parents that I was not suffering from some form of high-functioning autism.

From age seven on, I was placed in the most gifted classes in both public and private school. I enjoyed the challenge, and the attention I received, until I became a teenager.

In my transition to adolescence, I became aware of the incredible teenagers around the world writing novels, promoting peace, and inventing the types of machinery and technology that change the world.

These individuals inspired me, but secretly implanted a deep sense of fear and angst in my mind.

For as long as I could remember, people had been telling me, “Avery, you are going to do amazing things with your life,” while I spent my life like any other teenager: school, sports practice, homework, food, bed, repeat. I was not accomplishing any great feats.

I slowly began to feel like I was failing to fulfill my full potential as a human being.

Being exceptionally gifted, once a joy and privilege, had become a toxin to my emotional well-being. I was all consumed by my ego telling me that I should be more—or I was wasting my intellect.

This led me to sporadically start novels, blogs, articles, anything to prove myself worthy of my intelligence. I would give up on each one quickly and move on to my next idea, as unsuccessful as the first.

No matter what I tried, the world still did not know my name—the only thing, I thought, that could make feel adequate.

About a year ago, it dawned on me that my pattern of self-dissatisfaction and disappointment was unsustainable.

No matter what I did, no matter how many people knew my name, it made no difference. I always craved more, and anything less than becoming the next Einstein was a personal failure.

So, with that in mind, I began the arduous process of redefining success in my life. The only way I could do this, I learned, was to help others realize their own goodness.

I began with my personal mantra:

“It is better to change one person’s life than to have 1,000 know your name.”

I stumbled upon this realization somewhat suddenly, after taking a two-week long trip with my grade. I invested myself in helping my friends with sickness and fear, and I came away changed; I finally felt like I’d accomplished something permanent and meaningful.

Instead of living for recognition from the world, I began to look for satisfaction through my personal relationships. I no longer needed to change the world to be successful; I just needed to know that I had changed someone’s life for the better.

Surprisingly, this is a relatively easy task to accomplish with discipline. By investing myself in relationships with my friends, acquaintances, and partner, I began to receive incredible feedback.

People genuinely began to thank me—not for being kind, but for literally changing their lives.

The key for me was genuinely listening to others, and caring about their needs and opinions. Helping people came naturally to me, and remains the best gift I can give to others; not some profound piece of writing or technological advancement.

Typically, the people around me who I listened to had similar issues of inadequacy. I was not alone. They too believed themselves to be failures, unable achieve their potential, whether that potential was straight A’s or a sports scholarship or being kind.

I could see the innate goodness of the people around me shining through, and it pained me to see them suffer from feelings of inadequacy. I knew, deep down, that everyone around me was good and pure and beautiful, as all children of this earth are.

As a result, I realized through time that if the people around me were all beautiful and good, as all people are, then I must be good too—just the way I am and always will be.

By loving others, I had already achieved my purpose on this earth: to be the inherently sympathetic and kind creature that all human beings are.

I now actively seek people around me who need my care, and indulge them when necessary. Love has taken precedence in my life over material accomplishment, as it truly should. I have closer, more meaningful relationships, more acquaintances, and an exponentially higher self esteem.

The beauty is, people reciprocate genuine love: the people you help will be there for you in your times of need, too. Love is a self-fulfilling prophecy that can only be positive for all parties involved.

At the end of the day, people simply want to receive love and attention; and through giving others these things, I not only improved their lives but also my own perception of myself.

I was able to focus on the immediate positive impact my life was making on that of others, and I finally felt purposeful and that I was leading a meaningful life.

The truth is, not everyone can change the entire world, and not everyone needs to. All we can do is give as much love in our lives as possible, treat ourselves kindly, and leave the world a more positive place than we entered it.

That is all I can ask of myself, and I try to leave all other expectations of myself behind—the ones of impermanent success that can only bring me dissatisfaction and suffering.

Maybe thousands do not know your name, but you have the power to completely change the lives of those around you with love; and that, I’ve learned, is far more gratifying and important.

December 21, 2014