Something to Admire in Everyone

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed
emotions.  There is always something in our enemy that we like,
and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.   -William Butler Yeats

It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everything about someone we dislike is awful.  It's also very easy to think that everything about someone we like is positive and wonderful.  But life isn't like that, and if we ignore the good in our enemies and the not-so-pleasant (or even downright bad!) in the people we care for, we're doing a great disservice to ourselves.

I've known many people who have seemed to be extremely positive persons, whom I've liked very much, who after a while have turned out to be extremely manipulative and deceitful people.  The things that I liked about them were simply manipulative techniques to them--they acted nice to others so that others would do what they wanted them to do.  If I hadn't been aware that there's much more to people than what we see on the surface, I might have been simply another "victim" to them, another person being used, but not appreciated.

That doesn't mean, though, that we simply reject all such people.  There was still something about those people that was likable, and it was in my best interest to learn what that was.  Likewise, I've seen people who seem to be all negative with traits that would be good for any of us to emulate.  I've met rude and obnoxious people who are wonderful with their children; mean people who donate time and money to worthy causes; people who insult and belittle others who are extremely good at their trade or profession.  These people, too, seemed to be ones that I should reject immediately, yet if I were to do so I would not learn the important lessons that they have to teach me.

Sometimes the most important lessons we can learn is how to minimize the bad traits we see in ourselves and others while maximizing the good traits that we see in ourselves and others.

Life is always a mixture--almost nothing is one way all the time.  Unfortunately, we often seem to set ourselves up for disappointment, frustration, and worse when we choose to believe that a certain person is all one way.  We must accept that there will be the negative traits in the people we like, and that our enemies have traits that we can admire and learn from.