Pro Amiability/Philantropy, Contra Hostility

Christmas 2013

Over the last thirty years, I always gave a speech at the annual InterFace AG Christmas Party. In 2012, I talked about a good education being an excellent preparation but also a necessary requirement for designing both your own future and that of your neighbours more attractively and more successfully through courage in life and joyful behaviour.

Today, I know that “life-long learning” is necessary for “a good education”. However, what I mean is not “life-long” immersion in books. This is not about being a student all the time. Instead, it is about “opening up” towards the world and people. You have to leave your own snail shell and face life.  This is how you collect life’s experience, which you might perhaps also call experience – and which is so important for a content and successful life.

Consequently, I started my small speech on this year’s Christmas Party with this idea and tried to describe more factors, all of which can make us all successful. In my book those factors are philanthropy and tolerance.

I also mentioned the opposites that, almost unavoidably, cause failure: fear and, in particular, hostility. Both terms were topics of “philosophical seminars” I attended several years ago (“fear” with Baldur Kirchner, “hostility” with Klaus-Jürgen Grün), which affected me very much.

So what is the origin of hostility?

Even brain research seems to prove that hostility is not something inborn. Instead, it appears that our brains reward “doing well” with an outpouring of “happiness hormones”, which makes us quasi construction-based social creatures.
Regardless, I witness small and also big attacks of hostility from almost all people and all social systems on a daily basis.

Like weeds, hostility creeps up out of even the smallest crack. And it happens for all varieties of reasons. More often than not, it is fear that governs humans and makes them hostile. Both carelessness and the urge to know things better, or also the tendency to grumble, can be the reasons. All these and much more of the same kinds of things might be sources of hostility. You are overworked, you are “fed up”, new ideas are refused and intolerance towards all that is alien or different is nurtured.

This is how frustration and dissatisfaction accumulate, before going off in the form of more or less superficial or intense hostility. I often perceive “moralizing” as hostile and do not feel well at all if, for instance, someone says “this is how it is done” or “we always did it this way” as a reason for behaviour that looks strange to me.

What does hostility trigger in me?

Whenever I am at the receiving end of hostility, I first and foremost feel small and uncertain. I ask myself if and how I am the reason for the other person’s hostility? Did I do something evil that might have caused it? However, this sentiment soon turns into something else. I get defiant and will turn away. Until my attitude becomes one of “kiss my a…”. Being confronted with personal hostility makes me insecure. If the hostility seems systemic to me, I retreat into inner resignation and refuse to cooperate.

Hostility is often perceived as an accusation. It will create fear and is detrimental for building up trust. And my problem is that I will answer hostility with hostility (of my own). Now isn’t that a stupid vicious circle?

How to reduce your own hostility?

The only thing that works with me is: minimizing my own fear. But this is certainly one of those things that are easier said than done. Also, I try to minimize the personal distance between myself and those that are important to me. I try to accept and give empathy. And I make myself develop more serenity as days go by – and always to find my inner freedom.

Only with philanthropy can I be a success.

Wherever I am met with kindliness, I feel well. Which gives me a good feeling and makes me bigger and stronger. My fear will vanish. I like the sender of friendliness, I receive it with pleasure and am prepared to invest in it. I am surrounded by people who also feel the same. If I am “philanthropic”, I will quickly have many friends and allies. People will take me seriously, believe me and will also be prepared to do something for me. My environment is no longer against me; instead, it is for me. I am no longer surrounded by enemies, but by friends.

Basically, it is quite simple, isn’t it? Hostility is detrimental for your success, friendliness will make you a success. Consequently, it is stupid to be hostile and prudent to be philanthropic.

Well, this is roughly what my InterFace-Christmas-2013-speech should be.

RMD
(Translated by EG)

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