Every now and then I hear someone speaking about someone they don’t like. The thing that confounds me the most when I am encountering one of these discussions is when they are discussing someone that they do not like when they do not personally know that individual. I mean, I always want to question, “What kind of ego are you rockin’ when you believe you have the right to judge someone that you don’t even know on a personal level?” But, as we all understand, that kind of stuff goes on all the time.
 
More common, I guess, is when someone does not like someone they personally know. I get it, some people you just do not like. At least when you know them, face-to-face, you can draw your assessments from lived experience.
 
For me, if there is someone I don’t like, I simply let that emotions be as it may. If I can, I just move my life away from theirs. If, on the other hand, I must continue to deal with them on some level, I don’t allow that feeling to cloud my actions towards them. I simply let them exist in their own space of reality as I exist in mine. From this, nothing negative is ever created. The life of each of us is simply lived as best as it can be lived.
 
From a personal level, I believe pretty much anyone who has ever actually known me, likes me. And, I like them. Isn’t liking someone better than disliking them and generating all of those negative emotions that arise from that judgement?
 
As someone who has been in the public eye for a good portion of life, via writing, music, and filmmaking, I have occasional encountered the words and the writings of those who claim they do not like me. But, I always question, “They don’t know me, how do they come to the conclusion that they don’t like me? Isn’t that operating from a very egocentric, judgmental state of mind?”
 
Whenever I hear someone saying, they don’t like someone, I always ask them, “But, is that any reason not to treat them with respect?” I mean, here’s the thing, just because you decide you don’t like someone, that does not define anyone else’s reality but your own.
 
If you don’t like someone, doesn’t that simply mean that you are coming at them from a space of judgement about their life, their actions, their life choices, their whatever? And, what is judgment? Isn’t that just simply one of the lowest levels of human consciousness?
 
So… This is life. Maybe you don’t like someone. Okay… But, that does not mean that you should not treat them with respect. Just because you don’t like them, that does not make them wrong. It simply makes you judgmental.
 
Always, treat everyone with respect.