Everyone deals with things differently

In this blog post, I will talk about why different people deal with things differently, and how we can benefit from appreciating this fact. This is a really important topic as it is relevant to all of us. Yet it is something that at times we don’t appreciate as much as we should, and one example is when we try to give advice to others. Often advice is well intentioned, but it doesn’t always account for the fact that how one person deals with a given situation is different from another. There are also other examples where we don’t appreciate fully that everyone deals with things differently, and therefore I wanted to talk about this topic in this blog post.

I will start off by talking about an example of where people deal with things differently, which is dealing with grief. Provided it isn’t unhealthy, there is no wrong way of dealing with grief. Some deal with it by keeping busy and living life as normal as possible, whereas others deal with it by taking a break from normal life so that they can be with their family to help cope with the grief. Coping strategies that work for one person when it comes to grieving may not work for another.  Furthermore, the same person may deal with grief differently in different situations.

It’s first important to understand why different people deal with things differently. In my opinion, the main reason is because everyone has had different life experiences to date. I have friends that are the same age as me, been to the same school as me and live in the same area as me, yet we have had completely different life experiences to each other. I do feel that our life experiences help shape who we are, and hence it will influence how we deal and react to certain situations. For example, someone may have had a traumatic experience, and the way that they will deal with a situation related to that will be different to someone else that hasn’t had that traumatic experience. Furthermore, the environment that we have been exposed to will have had an influence on our personality, which will impact how we approach situations.

There are many benefits of fully understanding and appreciating that different people deal with things differently. Firstly, it can help us learn from others. It’s important to understand that diversity in society doesn’t just come from diversity in ethnicity, race, gender etc, it also comes from diversity in thought. We all have different views and opinions on things, and hence we will all deal with situations in our own way. Therefore, we can certainly learn from other people who deal with some situations differently to us, and use this as an opportunity to broaden our perspective. For example, seeing different approaches to deal with adversity helped me think about what I can do better when coping with adversity and difficult times. We learn a lot from other people, and seeing other people approach situations differently to us is one way we learn from others.

Furthermore, appreciating that different people deal with things differently helps us understand that we are unique. Different people dealing with things differently also implies that we all deal with things differently from other people. In some situations, we can sometime feel pressured to approach things in a certain way just because it seems that everyone else is approaching things that way. However, we are unique individuals and therefore it’s not possible to approach every situation the same way as someone else. A good example that highlights this is in the UK, where we are coming out of lockdown. It can sometimes seem that everyone else is dealing with this by going out all the time to pubs and restaurants, and it is easy to feel pressurized to say yes to every social invitation even if you still want to be cautious. Recognising that we are unique individuals and understanding that in most cases there is more than one valid way to deal with a given situation can help improve our self-confidence.

I hope this blog gave you an insight on why people deal with things differently, and how we can benefit from appreciating this fact. Feel free to comment on the comment section below!