President Trump’s poor approval ratings made him wonder recently why people don’t like him: “It can only be my personality,” he concluded. Well, maybe. But there’s more to it than that.
It got me thinking about how many of us want to be liked and respected, but no matter how hard we try, we find ourselves feeling isolated — and confused as to why. As the Gilbert and Sullivan song goes:
Everybody says I’m such a disagreeable man! And I can’t think why!
We certainly can’t please everyone, but consider if any the following might shed light on why people might find you disagreeable — someone with whom they don’t feel safe and comfortable. If you find yourself not caring about whether you’re likable or not, perhaps what I’ve written here will help you understand why some people you know are not easy to like.
For many people, the movement from being clueless to clued-in begins by replacing the addiction to blaming, shaming, or attacking others with a capacity for courageous introspection — entertaining the distasteful, but ultimately liberating, prospect that the cause of our isolation might lie within ourselves.
