# 8 - You can't reason with the unreasonable

The Top 10 Things I've Learned in My 50 years on this planet...

# 10 - Don't sweat the small stuff

#   9 - Being mean blows chunks

#   8 - You can't reason with the unreasonable

 

I've missed posting the last couple of days, so I'll try to make up for lost time today.  And # 8 is true in so many different situations.  I have lived it at home.  I have lived it at work.  I have lived it at church.  I have observed it in politics.  And I have lived it in just general community settings.   

 

See I tend to be one of those people that believes strongly in being able to reason with others.  And most of the time I have encountered reasonable people - and we are able to reach consensus and mutually agreeable solutions even if we start out from very different positions.

 

But sometimes - not often so much for me any more - but sometimes - I find myself trying to reason with an unreasonable person. It isn't obvious at first.  At first it just appears as though they are angry or prideful or caught up in the emotion of their position.  But after a while it becomes evident that this isn't just those things in a temporary way....but those things in a more permanent way...as in a personality or character trait that is deeply entrenched....leading to unreasonable.  They may appear to be reasonable - or even couch their lack of willingness to reason in nice sounding words - but the fact of the matter is, they are unwilling to budge or have a closed mind about new ideas or changing.

 

Two ancient proverbs come to mind along these lines - and I try to remind myself of them each time I come up against this situation.  They both helped me when I was living through the last few years of my marriage.  I haven't talked much about when I was married, but let me put it this way.  A friend I used to work with calls her first/ex-husband "The Village Idiot."  And I think we were both married to the same man.  Pay no attention to the fact that we lived in different parts of the country at that time.  It was the same man. I'm sure of it.

 

Anyway, back to those two proverbs.  The first one goes like this: "a fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control."  When people are being unreasonable, 9.76 times out of 10, they are also being a fool.  

 

And the other one goes a bit further to caution about how easily we can get sucked into another's foolish behavior and unreasonable approach:  "do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared."  Oh yea...been there, done that. 

 

If I had a picture of my ex-husband, I could post that as a thumbnail for this one.  But I could also post a few other pics - and that just wouldn't be good for anyone, so I won't.  Instead I'll simply remind myself to take a deep breath, smile and recognize those times when I'm trying to reason with the unreasonable.

 

And when that happens, then it's a matter of deciding whether it's a fight or flight situation.  But that's for another post someday...