How To Get Along With Others
Google gives you about 22,700,000 answers to this question. So I want to present an answer from the Jewish view, according to our religion, and my personal view.
Why should I get along with others? Getting along with others is the most practical thing that you can do. It gives you peace of mind. Peace of mind is good for your health. It will not drain your energy. You can be an active partner or a passive partner in the getting along peace process. Your goal should be to actively pursue getting along with others and not be reactive to whether the other person is nice to you OR NOT.
We can start by doing two things, at once if possible. That is to be the first to greet your friend and to smile. Too many times we wait until the other person says hello and acknowledges us first. We feel without even realizing it, that being the first to greet is demeaning and makes you less than the other person. The opposite is true. To put your ego to the side takes a lot of strength and that is not something to be embarrassed about. That is something to be proud about!
When you greet others first, you are giving them honor and who doesn't like honor? I know I do. And the rabbis said, "Who is honored? He who honors others." Honoring others creates a mirror effect. You honor and you get honored in returned. And the rabbis said, "He who pursues honor, honor runs away from him, and he who runs away from honor, honor pursues him." When you are the first to say hello, when you are the first to smile, when you are the first to ask "how are you?", you are telling the other person, "I care about you. You are important to me." The other person will say, "I am an important person, I have value."
There are stories of people that were on their way to commit suicide. On their way, someone greeted them and said, "Hello, good morning!" Suddenly, they started to have second thoughts about taking their life. They said, "This person acknowledged me. He made me feel good. I will continue living, perhaps there is hope."
You don't know if one smile, one hello, one hug, is going to save a human being. You don't know. Even if you don't save someone's life, you still give someone life."
A good word is like oxygen to a person. It can be like CPR to someone who is spiritually sick.
It is the ability to speak that differentiates us from the animals. If we don't greet someone, are we any different than the cat or dog that I just passed and didn't say hello to me? I am not. Our speech is our soul expressing itself. It is a gift from G-d above.
The first person to live was Adam. How did he come to life? G-d breathed into him a breath of life. See Genesis 2:7.G-d only breathed a breath of life into one person. Any person born after Adam is a continuation of this one breath but not directly through G-d. So each of us has this breath of life in us. Our rabbis tell us that four types of people are considered as dead: 1) a blind person 2) a poor person 3) a woman who can't have children and 4) a leper, i.e. an ill person. These four are considered as dead but there are many others who are not as dead but almost as dead: A person who is alone, a widow, orphans, people without friends, someone who doesn't have peace in his life, and there are other examples. It is our job to give them life. How do we give them life. We give them life through that which was breathed into us by G-d. What did he breathe into us? The ability to think and SPEAK!
So by speaking to others some nice words, acknowledging people, asking how they are, smiling, you are literally giving them LIFE. This is the biggest gift you can give anyone. You become G-dly having the ability to bring the dead back to life.
So let's summarize. How do we get along with others?
1) Greet them FIRST
2) Smile (this can be done simultaneously with #1)
3) Speak! Ask them how they are doing? Ask how you can help. Give a compliment. Give a hug.
Pursue peace by being the first to greet. Run from honor, and run to honor others.
You have in your hands and in your mouth, through speech, the ability to give life to others or G-d forbid, to leave someone for dead. Choose to give life.
