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[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi Scott,

Friends of mine live in a housing complex, I think you refer to it as a housing estate in the USA. Their neighbor is very erratic and at times very unpleasant. She lodges complaints for non-existent issues with the Body Corporate, goes from one house to the next spreading lies and teases my friend's dog (and several other petty things as well). When she finds work, she comes and apologizes and everything is OK while she's working. Unfortunately, she also lies about her qualifications and experience and can't keep a job for long. She's in her forties, but she acts like a child. They've had several conversations with her, spoken to her mother and ignored her (unless it's an official complaint that requires an official response). Nothing works. She owns the house, hence she can't be asked to leave. What advice can you give?

Kind regards
Alida Spies

When someone is struggling with a situation like this, it usually means they either (1) have not taken the time figured out what's in their control versus what's not, or (2) they aren't being honest with themselves about it.

With some things, it's obvious that the thing is not in our control, such as the weather. For instance, if you were planning to go to the beach, but you wake up and it's raining, you might feel some uncontrollable sadness but consciously it's not typically something you would 'struggle' with or ask for advice about because it's so obvious it's out of your control. You quickly remember that it's just to be unconditionally accepted as it is.

Similarly, some things are so obviously in your control that it's unlikely you would ever 'struggle' with them or ask for advice about how do to them. For instance, I wouldn't usually get a question like this: "There's a cookie in front of me. I want to eat it. It's my cookie. I can eat. Nothing can stop me. What is your advice?"

Where people struggle, is when they either don't know in which of the two categories above something falls, or aren't honest with themselves about it.

For example, a parent might struggle with their relationship to their adult child who doesn't live with them if the parent can't control the child at all but doesn't accept that and constantly 'tries' to change the child and control the child in self-deceiving dishonest denial that it won't work. Self-deceiving dishonest denial is analogous to unhealthy procrastination or taking out high-interest payday loans or even dealing with mafia-style loan sharks. It can be a comforting very short-term indulgence to avoid accepting a bitter truth, but the costs quickly overshadow the tiny short-term benefits. Unfortunately, humans (and other animals) are very susceptible to that kind of deal, which my book describes as temporal selfishness. A lot of people would choose $10 today over $100 next week. A lot of animals (e.g dogs) would choose one little treat right now over 100 treats in 10 minutes. That is perhaps the main reason why self-deceiving dishonest denial is so common, despite only giving such little short-term comfort at such massive mid-term and long-terms costs. Humans take those seemingly horrible deals almost always. It's literally programmed into their DNA to do it.

I think your friend would find it ultra-easy to deal with their neighbor and maintain full-fledged inner peace while doing so if your neighbor knew for fact that there was absolutely no way she could control or even slightly influence the neighbor at all nor prevent any of the harm or such that the neighbor causes. Then your friend would look at the neighbor, her behavior, and any disruptions or annoyances that might cause as she looks at the weather. The neighbor being loud would be no more upsetting or struggle-inducing than the rain being loud. The neighbor vandalizing things would be looked like ice cracking the concrete or rain drilling a leak into your roof. You accept that it's happening and deal with it with inner peace.

Similarly, if your friend realized they had full control over the neighbor to like a magical extent. I'm talking full mind control, as if moving the neighbor's body around was as simple and infinitely easy as moving one's own pinky finger, with just as much legal right to do it and such. Then your friend would surely no more ask for advice about or struggle with the neighbor any more than they do about the behavior of their own pinky finger. It would be doing exactly what the person ones. They are in 100% control.

The reason your neighbor is creating this illusion of struggle is presumably because they are mixed up about which things are in their control and which are not, and also probably in some degree of self-deceiving dishonest denial about what's in their control or not.

My advice would be for your neighbor to calmly think and mediate carefully on which is in their contorl and what is not in regard to the neighbor.

For instance, one thing that seems to be in your friend's control is the ability to file a formal official complaint with the housing authority. It seems to me like it would be a good idea to do and perhaps keep doing over and over every time an incident happens.

One thing your friend does not control is whether that formal complaint at all affects the neighbor's behavior, which it may not.

One way your friend could create the illusion of struggle and trouble would be if your friend was in dishonest denial about the latter fact and file official complaints only as means of trying to control what she deep down knows she cannot. If she files the complaints only as a means to change the neighbor's behavior despite knowing they don't work to do that, then it's like resentfully shaking her fist at the sky and yelling at the clouds to try to change the weather because she doesn't like that it's raining.

A great way to test for this is to simply watch out for the concept of 'trying' or 'failure'. If you are 'trying' at all, it means you are mixing up what you do control with what you don't, and, thus, also presumably are in some kind of self-deceiving dishonest denial.

Don't try to control what you can't control.

And you can't try to control what you do control because you control it, so there's no trying with what you control just doing. You don't--and can't--try to do something you are able to do; you just do it (or choose not to). There's no trying when it comes to your choices, just choosing.

In short, don't try. Don't try at all, ever.

If your friend does that (i.e. chooses to stop trying at all), then I think the seeming struggles and troubles involving the neighbor (and anything) will evaporate, being revealed as self-created illusions all-along.

Please do share this advice with your friend, and, if your friend does her best to implements it and still has questions or seeming troubles or struggles, please do reach back out with follow-up questions about the situation.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes