One of the primary causes of our happiness is other people.

One of the primary causes of suffering too is other people.

There are a lot of ways people can bring agitation, injury and anxiety to our mind and soul. By being abusive, by being insulting, by being ungrateful, by accusing us unjustly, by invading our privacy, by being a nuisance, by ignoring us—in a nutshell, by not treating us the way we deserve to be treated (Injustice).

To make the matter worse, for most part, we can’t directly control how they behave.

And if we don’t have proper mechanisms to handle such situations, it can bring us a lot of unwarranted sufferings and pain.

The obvious question then is, how to handle such situations.

As always, the short answer is simple. Follow the principles and you should be fine.

Tip: Please go through the link above if you are reading this blog for the first time, and aren’t already aware what those principles are and get back to this article, as you will derive much more value from it, having gone through the link, than without it.

However, let me get into the details.

Step 1 : Find Composure in Turmoil

First and foremost, choose not to react. It takes both fortitude and self-regulation to stop yourself from reacting. You have to endure the attack of the other person, which requires mental strength and you need to use your will against the impulse to react, which require self-control.

However, if it is really difficult to fend off or neutralize the urge, do your best not to react in the moment. Go silent or if you could, just defer the conversation to something else or some other time, or leave the premise or ask them to do so politely, telling them you will get back to the issue soon.

By all means, don’t react. That is the first step and unless this step is done right, nothing else would count.

Tip : Practice composure. For five minutes, few times a week, imagine people insulting/hurting/hating/[insert an injury] you, in your mind, and try to hold your calm and composure. It will help vaccinate you against events when such things actually happen.

The thing to realize is whether you are harmed or not, the cost of reacting is far more than the benefits it might brings. And you know it is not prudent to do something where potential benefit is not greater than the actual cost.

In fact, doing anything where your downside is not protected is imprudent. And the downside of a vengeful reaction, in the form of anger, or retaliation, is always unlimited. A small matter can escalate into a major fight leading to, in some cases, end of the relationship, or even worse physical injury inviting criminal penalties.

Another reason, anger or retaliation is imprudent, is because its costly to your own well being, that is, you increase and not decrease your suffering by getting angry.

Become aware that anger or retaliation is never, no matter what the situation is, prudent.

Realizing that will go a long way in your ability to find composure amidst turmoil.

Step 2 : Do an Unbiased Evaluation of the Situation

Look at the event from a neutral perspective.

By neutral I mean is not letting our judgement be affected by our emotions or ego.

Never let your first reaction to or impression of an event determine the nature of the event.

There are four possibilities :

You are on the wrong side. Both are on the wrong side. Other person is on the wrong side. No one is on the wrong side.

We must not discount the possibility of us being on the wrong side. We might not believe it, but if you look back through your life, and did an honest accounting, you will realize you have been on the wrong side, far more often than you would imagine. Understand that you are human and very much prone to the same flaws and mistakes. And there is a very good chance that you are the one at fault in the situation.

Be sincere, and be critical of yourself and really try to find if you committed an error, a misjudgment or a mistake. Examine your intentions. Are they pure and based on principle or motivated by personal gain?

It helps to be modest here because your judgement is very likely to be in your favor because of ego, or self-serving bias.

If you are at fault, apologize immediately and emphatically. Apologizing takes courage, and once again something where fortitude is needed. However, apology is not not enough. To be just, you must also ensure that a) you don’t commit the mistake again and b) you must make an honest attempt to alleviate the damage your mistakes might have caused.

In this article, however, we are majorly evaluating when the other person is wrong and not us.

Note that by wrong, I mean violation of a principle. An action is only considered wrong if it violates a principle.

Someone didn’t have empathy for you. Someone didn’t do his duty well. Someone was insincere in their conversation. Someone didn’t treat you with dignity. Someone is being unjust/biased in their dealing.

If you notice, all these acts are wrong only because they violate a principle.

It is only from the perspective of principles that we should evaluate the case. It is very important to do so, because if we examine something from the standpoint of personal gain or loss, we are not being truly just.

It is further important to note that the errors/wrongs can be classified to fall into one or more of the following categories :

a) errors of judgement,

b) errors of character,

c) human errors

d) errors of passion.

Of these, the third kind, human error, is out of the scope of our discussion because these are honest errors we commit only because we are not perfect as humans. These errors are neither intentional nor because of an acquired habit (character flaw) and hence the best course of action to deal with such an error is to immediately and promptly forgive them, thus exercising the principle of humanity. Example : accidentally tipping over someone.

Errors of judgement, also called intentional errors, may stem from a flawed perspective/worldview/belief, or from the prospect of personal gain.

Acts of terrorism is an example of a person doing terrible acts out of wrong intentions stemming from a flawed worldview.

A terrorist may be an extreme example but a lot of day to day wrongs that we experience (or do) come from this place. Calling someone stupid or insulting someone by labeling him (Stereotyping) may be an example of this.

A great percentage of people err in their judgement because they are not aware of the principles or truth or because the voice of their conscience has been overridden by faulty belief systems they hold.

Yet another group of people have wrong intentions because they hope to gain something out of it.

Robbery is an example of one such act.

Of course it can be argued that these two actions (Terrorism and Robbery) are somewhat related because the robber also has a flawed perspective in that he thinks that any mean is justified if the end is desirable.

It is therefore, fair to say that the errors of judgement, really, are the errors of beliefs/worldview/perspective/paradigm.

Errors of judgement can, therefore, be corrected or prevented from happening again if the worldview/beliefs are changed (of course it is generally not easy to do so).

A vast majority of the wrongs we experience, however, are not the errors of judgement, but rather those of character.

Errors of character are those that arise out of our acquired habits.

People speak rudely to others, not because they don’t know it is wrong to speak rude, but because they have habit of doing so.

People don’t have empathy for us not because they think empathy is bad, but because they are accustomed of being not empathetic.

A lot of people lie not because they don’t realize lying in wrong, but because they have a habit of doing so.

These are all errors of character.

Sometimes, it is both an error of judgement and of character, especially when we act too many times out of wrong judgement and it becomes our second nature. Prostitution is one such example. A lot of people don’t suppose going to a prostitute (especially when you are single) is wrong, thus having a flawed worldview and it often becomes a habit or a character flaw.

Finally, the fourth kind of errors, those of passion, are those that happen because a person is unable to control his urge or impulse in a provoking moment. Hitting/abusing someone in a fit of anger is one such example.

But anger could also be an error of character.

The key difference between errors of passion and those of character, is that errors of passion are infrequent and are completely unpredictable.

Of course, all these types are errors are not mutually exclusive. However, they have a leaning towards one type or the others.

Knowing where they are coming from can help a lot in deciding how to best deal with them.

After we have determined that the other person is really on the erring side, and what kind of error/wrong it is that we are dealing with, comes the next step.

Step 3 : Have Empathy

Part of having empathy is knowing where those errors are coming from. But the real change that empathy brings is, as we empathize with others, we become aware that we might commit the same errors/mistakes/wrongs if we shared their perspective, or if we had the same character flaws or if we were provoked in the similar way.

And when we see this, the hatred we feel towards the other person dissipates. Any anger we might have towards them, vanishes too. Our hatred is replaced by a sense of pity. The same kind of pity that we would feel for a disabled person, only this time, it is a disability of mind and the soul.

With that perspective in place, it is much easier to forgive a lot of these errors which are inconsequential.

Now it is worth mentioning that we don’t need to forgive or passively endure every harm that we are subjected to. However, our attitude should not be about exacting revenge but about preventing such errors from happening in the future.

Revenge-seeking stems from hatred and without hatred, there will be no revenge seeking. Knowing that we might commit the same errors if we were in their shoes, further exposes the fallacy in revenge-seeking.

Would we seek revenge from ourselves if we committed an error that harmed us?

Step 4: Act Prudently to Prevent those Errors from Happening Again

Law of Prudence : Unless something is effective & useful, it is not prudent.

First and foremost, we must understand what we can control and what we can’t, something which again requires prudence.

Worrying about something we can’t control, is imprudent because it is neither effective, nor useful.

Of course, in an ideal world, we would love to completely prevent such errors from happening in the future, but that is not always easy and in a lot many cases, downright out of our control.

It is imprudent to waste our energy or effort on something we don’t have any control over.

However, we can do a lot more than we normally think.

First, we need to understand that there are so many tools at our disposal.

However it is important to recognize when it is prudent to use those tools.

A lot of the harms we are subjected to come from people who don’t matter in our lives, and whom we have little to no influence over. They are more often than not, non-repeating errors/harms, we get subjected to as we cross their path. Unless the error is really consequential, the prudent thing to do, is to ignore it and move on. (Not effective + Not Useful)

Another kind of error we would be prudent to ignore would be these inconsequential errors coming from people we care about (errors that result in minor annoyance, but very much within our tolerance range), for the simple reason that investing our time in correcting those errors, even though they may be corrected using the tools we have, aren’t really worth the effort. (Not useful)

In fact, the above kind of errors should be forgiven on the account of Principle of Humanity. We should practice being more tolerant of other people’s fallibility realizing it is human to be fallible, bringing to attention our own flaws and just like us, they too deserve to be forgiven.

Tip : Practice remembering your own mistakes and flaws. Sit few minutes every week to reflect on the wrongs you might have committed in the past, just to get a fair perspective on how human it is to err, and therefore, how necessary it is to forgive.

It is therefore, only prudent to act or use our tools if we have some degree of influence over the subject and/or if the person really matters in our life and more importantly, if the errors are really consequential in nature.

For errors of judgement, we need to examine which faulty beliefs they are coming from and instead of attacking them, offer them evidence or logic as to why their beliefs might be faulty. Exercise fortitude and humanity in trying to get your point across, lest they turn defensive. Of course, whether they buy into your logic or not, is out of your control, but you might give this a try, at least a few times, as long as you know it could be effective.

These types of errors are often one epiphany (or paradigm shift) away from being reformed but also takes a lot of weight to be lifted, as more often than not, a wrong belief doesn’t exist in isolation but in the cobweb of similar or related faulty beliefs.

If we have evidence to think that, logic or evidence won’t work and therefore are not effective, we may use the next tool in our toolbox known as warning. Warning acts through inducing fear in the prospect and therefore, may be helpful in a lot of cases to prevent future occurrences of erring behavior, provided of course that they actually believe that you could act on the warning, and the extent of the warning is concerning enough for them.

It is important however, not to violate any principles in our issuance of warning. We should not, no matter what the situation is, undermine human dignity, by abusing or by threatening.

If that too doesn’t work, the next tool in our toolbox is actually acting on our warning i.e. justified punishment.

In case of a relationship, the ultimate form of punishment we can inflict is breaking the relationship.

If the error is really consequential, repeatable and resistant to change, the the prudent thing to do, in such circumstances, is to distance ourselves from the person so we are not affected by their acts.

Notice that having empathy doesn’t mean we have to always be forgiving or accommodating. It only means having no hatred towards a person and taking a decision from the place of our desire to prevent the error from happening rather than from the place of exacting revenge.

Moving on to the errors of character.

Errors of character is when you know it is wrong to do something but you do it out of habit. In this case, appreciate the fact that the person understands that he is erring. He is more or less addicted to the erring behavior, and just like any other addiction, it can be cured, provided the person honestly wants to cure it.

If the person does want to cure it, offer your support. There are a lot of prudent ways you can try to cure the habit, and the approach will vary based on specific character flaws. However in all the cases, having empathy, being tolerant and acting with fortitude will help you and them seamlessly navigate through the process of change.

Use of warning or punishment might not work in this case because neural patterns don’t reverse themselves through one time use of fear or suffering, they might be useful, however, when such habits are in their nascent stage, that is when they are still errors of judgement.

Again, whether they actually change or not, is not under your control and if you have exercised your power and you have evidence to think it is not working, remember that you always have the option to move on from or end the relationship.

Finally the errors of passion, although infrequent but cause much damage while they occur. The only thing to ask about such error that if the person is truly regretful of their behavior. If they are, it makes sense to forgive them, on account that this might never happen again (Like we said : Our goal is to prevent an error from happening, not exacting revenge).

However the fact that the person is regretful of their behavior isn’t always evidence to assume that the behavior will never happen again. In a few rare instances, it makes sense, to break our ties with the person as a cautionary measure, especially when the error has caused irreversible damage and their recurrence, however small the probability, will in fact be very damaging. (Protecting our downside).

You might suppose that I am advocating ending the relationship when things don’t work out, but that is not the case.

I am only advocating termination if these errors inflict damage that are beyond our tolerance range.

We can certainly get used to a lot of things. Our ability to adapt is phenomenal. However there are certain things we don’t ever adapt to. Among these include chronic stress, constant abuse, fear of physical damage, basically anything that threatens our tranquility and peaceful survival. However, it is completely up to us, what we allow ourselves to tolerate and what we don’t, and if the errors are beyond our tolerance range, and have no hope of correction, it is prudent, in such case to terminate the relationship.

Step 5 : Find Equanimity

Walking away from an unjust relationship may not always be an option without seriously jeopardizing your well-being.

Perhaps it is a job that you desperately need and your boss is really cruel. Perhaps you have found yourself in the middle of an abusive marriage but you have to stay in it because, you have kids and your spouse is the only bread-winner.

The most important thing to realize in all these situations is this : The world is inherently unjust and biased. History is filled with instances where grave injustices were done to people. If we are to be at peace, we must come to terms with reality, however, grave it may be.

Why is this important?

Because to expect the world to be otherwise means throwing ourselves up for constant disappointments and sorrow. The world has always been like that, and will always be like that. No doubt there are good people in it, but there is also enough evil. And even good people are prone to lures and provocations. Therefore, expecting the world to be just and fair, is a recipe for constant misery.

The best antidote against disappointment is to fully accept and internalize the fact that bad things will happen whether we like it or not.

It follows therefore, that right attitude to have is not of entitlement, but of gratefulness. When someone treats you well, be grateful instead of feeling entitled for that behavior. When someone is just in their dealing with others, appreciate it rather than just giving it just a passing glance.

And when you find yourself in the middle of an injustice you simply can’t escape, be equanimous. Remember, outside circumstances can take away everything from you, but what they can’t take away is your character and as long as you are able to maintain your character, the battle is not lost. It goes without saying that regardless of how unjust the world is to you, don’t add to the injustice by being unjust yourself. Never compromise on your principles, even if you have to give your life for it.

If the whole world turns evil, be the only one who is not.

Expecting the world to be just is not the same as hoping the world to be just. When you expect something, you feel entitled for it and when it actually happens, you feel nothing and when it doesn’t happen, you feel disappointment and victimized.

Hope, on the other hand, is based on your wish for the world to be in a certain way, a wish that you don’t take for granted. The key difference between the two therefore, is that when you hope, you accept that what you are hoping for may not come true, and when it does come true, you are immensely grateful, but even more important, when it doesn’t come true, you are equanimous.

It is therefore, perfectly okay to hope the world to be just, as long as you don’t expect it to be so.

Prudence is in following this old adage : Hope for the best, and prepare for (or expect) the worst.

This, my friend, is the long answer, to how to deal with injustice done to you.