How To Deal With a Person You Dislike

Salam..

How do you deal with your feelings when you dislike a person? Coming through all the way to the adult stage, there must have been some points in our lives where disliking a person is inevitable. The common advice I often heard was people saying, ' Think about their good deeds so you will forget the bad things they have done'. It is true, indeed. But what if their bad manners outnumbered those good ones? Or if the two were equal? Would you be able to tolerate? Now I'm making it even more complex. Haha. But that's how women are born to be, a set of complex working machine, aren't we? Pheww.

When that moment of disliking someone hit me, every now and then, I could not resist thinking how demonic it was to let the feeling growing inside me. And at that point I know, there must be something off with my heart. It was as if I have been allowing a venom settling inside me and let it travel freely through my bloodstream. A venom that could kill my inner self.

"Indeed, in the body there is a piece of flesh - if it is in order, then the body is in order, and if it is spoiled, the whole body is spoiled. It is the heart.     (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim)

We are all normal human beings after all. Each of us has a dark side, either in a smaller or greater scale. Yet, we tend to overlook ours and judge others for the same mistake. Very bad.

All this while I have been searching for the right method to get rid of the feeling whenever it struck me, and recently I have come through a short story from the book I read. It left me with a great relief. And that's why I'm making an effort to write it down here.

It was about a lady who was going to start her new career. Having to be informed that the senior was a narrow-minded and negative kind of person, she did not dwell herself with the miserable news. Instead, she went to ask the woman who was retiring from that job how she was able to deal with her former senior for some good years.

And that woman simply said. 'I pray for him. It's very difficult to dislike someone for whom you are praying'.

Her answer was amazingly positive and beautiful. The characters in the story were non-Muslim, but the story itself was a good example for us as a Muslim.

Very often we prayed for those near us or those whom we favor, asking for all the kindness to be showered upon us. Nonetheless, the power of dua is beyond that. Instead of hoping for them to change their attitudes, why don't we ignore all those facts and just pray for their best.

In syaa Allah it will clear out the venom that has once resided inside us because we have found the most powerful vaccine, that is our dua   :)

"The dua of a Muslim for his brother (in Islam) in his absence is readily accepted. An angel is appointed to his side. Whenever he makes a beneficial dua for his brother the appointed angel says 'Aameen. And may you also be blessed with the same."        (Sahih Muslim)

Till then, Assalamualaikum..