Outsmarting the what? Is that a typo? You think they’d at least get a headline right! Who’s proof-reading this column, anyway?
Did you have any of these or similar thoughts when you read the headline? Did you start to have negative feelings or thoughts toward what you might read in the rest of the article? If you did, your yetzer hara is wide awake, ready to help you think the worst of people today.
In Hebrew, the yetzer hara is the evil inclination and the yetzer hatov is the good inclination. Rather than being external forces — like devils and angels — in Judaism we each have free will to choose between these two inclinations which are a part of us.
As a communications consultant, I’ve been trying to find a way to write about the yetzer hara for a long time, because I see it at work every time a misunderstanding leads to stress, frustration and arguments. But this isn’t a concept that I can introduce to the classroom or the workplace without causing concern among people who want or need to keep spiritual and religious beliefs separate from those environments.
Since you’re reading this column, I will assume that you are open to this idea that there might be a sneaky yetzer hara inside each of us, just waiting to cause trouble and thriving on our distress. How does it operate? It causes us to think the worst of people’s intentions toward us and stops us from finding reasonable explanations for people’s words and behaviour. This can lead to unnecessary anger and depression. These negative energies stifle our ability to be creative, to generate positive thoughts and to improve the lives of others by the things we say and do.
The simplest example is when someone cuts in front of us in traffic or bumps into us without stopping to apologize. In either case, the person might not even have been aware of our existence, but the yetzer hara causes us to take this as a personal insult. When we feel insulted, we lose confidence or get angry. Either response brings negative energy.
The yetzer hara is happy to help us carry this negative energy into our workplaces and homes and share it with those around us. If we don’t tell someone why we’re upset, they may think we’re upset with them for no reason, which in turn activates their yetzer hara to think the worst of us. This negative energy and willingness to believe the worst of people’s intentions continues to spread like a virus and, by the end of a day, there is no way to count how many people have been affected.
So how can we outsmart the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, and activate the yetzer hatov, the good inclination? One way is to be curious and to give people the benefit of the doubt. When someone cuts in front, ask: “I wonder how that happened, am I in their blindspot?” When someone bumps into us without apologizing, ask: “I wonder what’s going on in their life, what could cause them to walk into people?” Curiosity will help reduce negative emotions and keep the yetzer hara from taking over.
And we can activate our yetzer hatov, by thanking God that we didn’t get hurt, and by helping others through the positive things we say and do throughout the day.
Fiona Prince is a communications and behavioural consultant in Victoria. She volunteers for Chabad Vancouver Island, teaching children and adults to read Hebrew.
