I’m the type of person who is so curious that always wants to meet new people. But it doesn’t always go my way. In fact, until now I met enough people to know what types of people to avoid.
By avoiding these types of people, especially the ones from the 3rd category (even though it rarely happens to meet them), I ended up having a more peaceful life. Also, I’ve learned what kind of people I’m looking for and you’ll find that at the end of the article.
I’ve always known that it’s really important to have quality people in my life. And this belief became even stronger after I discovered the longest study on happiness, around 6-7 years ago.
The study is called the Harvard Study of Adult Development and it’s been a constant research for more than 80 years. Actually, the study is still running and until now it concluded with one simple idea: The good life is built with good relationships.
Therefore, before you continue reading, maybe take a few seconds and think about your relationships and what makes them so great.
Table of Contents
1. Avoid people who can’t assume their mistakes
You don’t really want these people in your life.
It happened to me a few times before that I got involved in some projects and whenever something happened, nobody took responsibility for their mistakes. Nobody.
I mean, seriously? You started working on something and then you fucked it up. Just assume it, accept your mistake, and work towards solving it. Especially when everyone else is supportive and wants to see you grow.
But no, some people are so afraid of making mistakes that they can’t even comprehend the idea of making mistakes.
As soon as you accept this type of people in your life, you’ll become responsible for their life. You’ll become the center of their blames and you’ll have to accept that their problems are your problems.
2. Those who forgot to be human are people to avoid
This second category is related to the first one, in a way.
For example, if I do a mistake and I assume it and take responsibility for it, I expect to not be punished by those around me. On the contrary, I expect that those around me will be supportive and help me overcome my mistakes. After all, that’s what it means to be human.
But some of us have forgotten.
It happened to me recently that I did a mistake. From my point of view, it wasn’t such a big deal – but I can understand that it was related to something important for the other person.
Therefore, I got a very blunt and corporate answer such as: “I’m sorry David, from now on we can’t continue. Maybe we’ll speak again about the collaboration in a few years, but for now things can’t go any further.”
What if, instead of saying that, I would have gotten an answer like: “Hey David, I would like to continue our collaboration but there are a few things I’d like to adjust. Let’s see how we can improve the situation in the next few months so that we can enjoy this collaboration at its maximum potential.”
Well, in a way I moved on. What others think, feel, and do is not under my control. I just avoid the people who seemed to forget how to be human.
3. Avoid people who want to harm me
It happened to me last year that one of my best friends suggested that I should suicide.
Yes, that’s fucked up.
I was in a rough place and I needed to meet with people, so I can have them next to me physically. When I asked for it, the situation led to a suggestion that was absurd.
I mean, I’ll just say it: people are dumb. It’s so dumb to say that I should suicide when I’m asking for your help.
If you have such people in your life, for the sake of your health, just kick them out. It’s best to avoid these people because they are the worst to have in your life.
4. Avoid people who ignore problems
Yes, sure, you can ignore your problems as much as you want.
But if you ignore your problems and I am somehow connected to the chaos generated from you ignoring your problems, we have a problem. Which you’ll ignore, of course.
People who ignore their problems will ignore whatever is important to you.
I noticed that, if I need something from these people, in 90% of the cases it gets ignored. As long as what I need is not connected to something of great importance, then it gets ignored. And it creates problems that also get ignored. And these problems are ignored until the whole system collapses.
Imagine you are asking your supervisor to give you feedback for your work but it never does. And you tell your supervisor about all the problems that you encounter, but they still ignore your needs.
Eventually, you’ll get tired of it and one year later you’ll realize you just lost one year of your life. You didn’t grow at all and the only thing you have are all the frustrations you accumulated during that year.
Avoid those people who are ignoring their problems because they ignore everyone’s problems.
5. Avoid people who don’t understand time
If you ask me to be somewhere, I tell you I’ll be there at 12:00, and you agree to meet me then, then be there at 12:00. Not at 12:30.
Whenever you do that, you have more control over my time than I do, and I hate that.
And I don’t hate many things. In fact, I think it’s the only thing I truly hate. Others are just things I dislike.
If I give you my time and you fuck it up, then you’re out of my life. It’s my time and I can waste it whatever I want. But if you mess up even 5 minutes of my time, for me it means that you can’t appreciate one hour of my time.
Understanding time is not about understanding the second itself. It’s about understanding the freedom that time gives me and the ability to do whatever I want with my freedom.
When you’re late 30 minutes and it seems you don’t really care or you can’t organize your life to improve your timing, for me it means that you don’t really have control over your freedom and you can’t value and appreciate it. If that’s the case, how can I expect you to value and appreciate mine?
Whenever this happens, I take a step back. I’d rather avoid these people and depend on them.
6. Avoid people who can’t communicate
Do you struggle to express yourself? Don’t worry. Let me help you better outline your ideas.
Do you believe I am a mind reader and I should know what you think? Yeah, right. I would have been a billionaire by now.
People are replacing more and more the process of communication with a process of assuming. They assume the person they’re talking to knows what they’re thinking, so they limit the communication to abstract things.
Instead of saying “I need that from there.”, what about you say “I need the laptop from the table.” or “I need the car keys from the shelf.”
As soon as you assume that I’m a mind reader, you’re next on my list of people to avoid.
People worth chasing for
I’ve been chasing all kinds of people and wanted to have different types of people in my life. But right now, I’m somewhere in my life that I’m chasing only one type of people.
The people worth chasing are those people who have great common sense and can be trusted. That’s it. It’s as simple as that.
If your common sense makes you a grounded person and you can keep your word, then you are someone worth chasing. Everyone else is just people to avoid.
With love and optimism,
David