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Getting Along with Others

By Mark Carr, PhD

Photo: Dreamstime

Have you ever noticed how we reserve our best efforts and attitudes for certain others in our lives? Perhaps your boss gets your best efforts, you most positive attitude? Maybe your spouse or children get your best efforts. Once, recently, in the midst of a disagreement with one of my children, the phone rang. I paused briefly, picked it up and answered with the most pleasant voice I could manage. It worked well, I was pleasant and the conversation was positive and constructive. In fact, I was happy to be so pleasant and positive to the person on the other end of the phone. When I hung up the phone my child and I launched right back into our argument. We were both pretty ugly toward each other; negative and pessimistic would be accurate words to describe our talk. What put an end to our ugliness was my child’s reflection about the phone conversation I had just finished. “Why were you so nice and positive with whoever that was on the phone?” asked my child. In the midst of our bitter words, I had paused, turned on my best efforts to be nice and positive and answered the phone.

Have you ever noticed how we reserve our best for someone other than those we need to honor the most? Being positive-minded toward everyone else, toward all others will dramatically improve our ability to get along with each other.

Be positive:

With a heart softened toward others we are more inclined to live out the charge that the apostle Paul leaves for us in the book of Romans 12.9-21. “Let love be genuine” he says by way of introducing what he takes to be the marks of a true Christian. Paul was no stranger to arguments and fights. He managed his way through a great many of them, some of which he surely caused. So, we can take his words here to be the counsel of wisdom; the counsel of someone who has as we say these days, “been there, done that.”

This passage is worth quoting at length:

“Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all….Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12.11-21

Wouldn’t it be nice if Christians took this counsel to heart and sought peace instead of argument at every opportunity?

Sometimes the proverbs of our parents stick with us like the verses of scripture. My mother’s words come to me again in this context. She would say to me, “Mark, if you don’t have something good to say, don’t say anything at all!” I get the sense that Paul would agree with my Mom here. Even when the other person we are engaged with is trying to draw us into a fight, even when they are being argumentative and pig-headed, we do not have to let them get the best of us. We do not have to fight. We don’t have to become some sort of fake cheer leader on the flip side. But we do well to avoid fighting with each other.

Perhaps you’ve now heard of a new psychological disease that is helping us place the phenomenon of “road rage.” Psychology researchers have discovered that rage happens in lots of other places in addition to our crowded roads. And they have discovered similar patterns in these various places of the expression of anger. Thus they have now come up with the designation of this “disease,” Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). Intermittent Explosive Disorder seems to be yet another emerging reality of our inability to relax and get along with each other. I don’t know much about this disorder or psychology in general….But I do know that it would help us all if we were just able to get along with each other a little bit better.

Conclusion:

We should uphold and practice four principles of ethics. They include hanging on to a positive mindset, practicing the character traits of Jesus himself, keeping the interest of the other foremost in our minds, and thinking carefully about what we believe and why. Living out these principles is not easy, but let me suggest that it sure beats fighting with each other!
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Mark F. Carr, PhD is director of the Center for Christian Bioethics and associate professor of Religion at Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA. Answers © 2010 AnswersForMe.org. Click here for content usage information.