Everyone Is A Package Deal

It's amazing that we all know that there is no perfect house, whether we built it or rent it, and we adjust so well to the realities of the choice we make such that it becomes very emotional for us to move to another house. None of us believes a real estate agent when he tells us he has gotten us a perfect house. We know that something will be wrong with the house, either the location or the neighbours or the electricity or the room size or the traffic on the road that leads from there to your workplace. In fact, we are not surprised by these shortcomings and won't even be at ease until we are told the shortcomings of the house.

image: eecg.toronto.edu

But when it comes to dealing with people we take things the other way round. We expect everyone to be perfect, their shortcomings come as a surprise to us and we don't want to accommodate those shortcomings. We treat a house better than we treat people. We would adjust to make ourselves comfortable with the house we rent and try hard to get along with the landlord. Yet the first thing we do in a new workplace is to shut out the people we have minor issues with; we won't get along with people for trivials like "I greeted him on my first day at work and he didn't respond", "I don't like the way he looks and walk" and the most ridiculous one: "My spirit just doesn't get along with him." We don't give a chance for other people's shortcomings. We won't adjust to get along with people and we act as if it's a bad thing for anyone to have a shortcoming.

We have trouble seeing people as a package deal of both good and bad. Like a house. No one has everything great about him. Even your role model has feet of clay. You, yourself, have probably got legs of clay. No one is perfect. No one should be expected to be perfect. No one should be despised for being imperfect. People's shortcomings shouldn't draw excessive criticism from you. You should even expect to someday come in contact with the not-so-good part of every saint you know. 

Perhaps, we should treat people more like the way we treat our houses. We should expect them to have shortcomings, and rather than looking for a perfect person we should look for one we can bear with his/her imperfections. We should be willing to adjust to live/work comfortably with others, and not always being judgemental. We should not just get along with them, but just as we get along with our landlords, neighbours and house environment, we should get along with all that comes along with them. Once you've made your decision to live/work with a person then adjust to accommodate all that comes along with that decision or simply change the decision. Everyone is a package deal.