Thoughts of Others | Original
When I was young, I often didn’t think much about others. I usually thought about myself, meaning I didn’t consider much about how other people lived, what they thought of me, their purposes, mental states, struggles, characters, etc.
When I had more conflicts with others, I wanted to think more about them. Why didn’t they like me? Why did they have opinions about me? Why weren’t they okay with my honest behavior or words? Why did some people leave me? Why did some people and I start to lose contact?
Did I overthink? Was it not that we lost contact, but that I didn’t try to contact them proactively?
And in the corporate career, why did someone say such things? Why did someone show impatience? What were everyone’s priorities? Who could deliver and who couldn’t? Whose words were more honest? Who could point out the solutions? Whose insights had more wisdom?
It is a lot of work to analyze. So when I was younger, I didn’t think about it much because it took time and effort. It is a harder thing to do.
I have to say that the thoughts of others are highly related to their behaviors. When someone mentions something and you observe their behavior later, you will probably find a correlation.
Marriage is a serious thing. So if a couple breaks up, there should be some fundamental issue that couldn’t be fixed. For a job, if an employee and employer part ways, there is probably also a significant gap between them.
While people have different thoughts, they seldom change them. Only a small number of people update their thoughts frequently, and it depends on various factors. This includes whether someone likes you.
For someone who doesn’t like you, it is hard to make them like you. For someone who doesn’t hate you, it is hard to make them hate you too. For someone in the middle, their attitude toward you might change due to some interactions.
Why do we think about the thoughts of others? One reason is that we want to collaborate better with others so that our thoughts won’t conflict much with theirs. We find it hard to change our thoughts to match those of others, but at least we can know the differences and then we are probably more willing to accept others’ thoughts too.
People like to be the same. People think they are the best and others should follow. Some people have better tolerance for being different. Even in one team, different people have different feelings or judgments about others. Though people may treat everyone the same, others’ understanding might differ.
Perhaps we should focus on the behaviors of others since it is hard to know their thoughts exactly. Because thoughts change fast, as time passes, when one mulls over things, one may have different opinions.
There is a saying that it is better to see how others act instead of what they say. Because in their talk, they might be lying, telling only part of the truth, or quickly changing their actions without updating their words.
How to know the thoughts of others better? One way is to meet more people to understand different views of things and the world. Another is to think more and from different angles to gain more empathy. Another way is if you talk openly, just directly ask.
If we can think thoroughly and from different angles, others’ thoughts are just like our thoughts. That would be great because it creates more harmony and helps us live in this world better.