Dealing with difficult people

I have been thinking about a topic for a while now. How do you deal with people you don't like? I kept calling it in my mind "dealing with difficult people". I realized yesterday what I mean is I find dealing with people I don't like to be difficult for me. It is not that they are difficult, it is that I find any situation with them difficult.

I have a very low tolerance for people who want you to sympathize with them over everything but never seem to change anything. It seems to me the same stories and problems over and over again. Sometimes they are repackaged but essentially the same. They always seem to react to the problem the same also. I find that beyond frustrating. Who does not want to improve themselves and their life? Why would you just keep covering the same old ground? I live in fear that I am really one of those people, and just don't recognize it.

If I don't like someone I tend to withdraw from that person. Why spend time with someone you don't get along with? The simple answer to that is because you will eventually eliminate everyone. I will end up alone, and I assume very bitter. Recently, I had someone that I had written off reach out to me. It was not a big gesture, it was a small one of simply talking to me. I can remember thinking "Why are you talking to me, don't you know we're not friends?" No, she did not know that, because I would not say something like that, only think it. As I thought more and more about the situation I realized I had put up the barrier not her. I was incredibly touched by the conversation, because I realized what an effort she was making. She was trying to get to know me, even though I had dismissed her. I realized how narrow I had become. It sucks to realize something like that about yourself, but it sucks more to not have realized it and kept moving in my small rut.

This person continues to make an effort to talk with me, and I in return am making an effort to get to know her also. I'm not saying we will be best friends, I'm saying that we do not need to be enemies.

The funny thing is that I doubt she even knows what she did for me that day.

Love you neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:39 It is the second greatest commandment given in the Bible and it is the one I struggle with the most. I don't think I am the only one struggling with that one.