Coping with Gormless People

These options are not spread across a spectrum it’s either/or.

If you’ve read the piece on Communication you’ll see the ways in which people can disguise the fact that they are neither fixing things nor letting go.

You can choose to spend a long time in the “neither,” response position but to do so requires you to disguise the fact that you choose this response.

There’s something awfully fulfilling in holding on to resentment that you can’t do anything about the incompetent or gormless neighbour, relative, colleague or spouse. However, (there’s always a however) it’s almost never true - you can do something about it and you choose not to.

OK, it may not seem much of a choice, e.g. telling your boss, spouse or friend just what effect their gormless behaviour has on you could result in you being either jobless, single or friendless, so you tell yourself that you have to put up with it. Well no you don’t - you choose to put up with it.

You may think, “big deal," but grasping this reality is truly liberating, though you do have to give up on the wonderfully comforting wad of resentment that you’ve kept in the side of your cheek for all this time.

When you blow away the fog and accept that you choose not to fix the problem the gormless person is causing you - even if you add, “for now,” to your choice - it still liberates you from powerless resentment. Give it a try.

I met a lady who said she was having difficulty coping with gormless incompetent fools. Right off the bat I had every sympathy with her. But then after a moment’s reflection thought that my wife might have more reason to hold such a view.

If you assume a sort of bell-shaped curve of distribution of gormlessness and incompetence and you are at the more competent end of the spectrum then you’re going to feel frustrated a good deal of the time.

So, since the world will continue to contain an endless supply of gormless folk, the task was to help this lady change her point of view. She could either let it go or fix it - both “winning” responses. She normally took the third option which was to neither let it go nor fix it.