ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE ■ 167wonderful and the evening miserable. Because we depend so much on
the affection and approval of others, we are extremely vulnerable to how
we are treated by them.
Therefore a person who learns to get along with others is going
to make a tremendous change for the better in the quality of life as a
whole. This fact is well known to those who write and those who read
books with titles such as How to Win Friends and Influence People. Busi
ness executives yearn to communicate better so that they can be more
effective managers, and debutantes read books on etiquette to be ac
cepted and admired by the “in” crowd. Much of this concern reflects
an extrinsically motivated desire to manipulate others. But people are
not important only because they can help make our goals come true;
when they are treated as valuable in their own right, people are the most
fulfilling source of happiness.
It is the very flexibility of relationships that makes it possible to
transform unpleasant interactions into tolerable, or even exciting ones.
How we define and interpret a social situation makes a great difference
to how people will treat one another, and to how they will feel while
doing it. For instance, when our son Mark was twelve years old, he took
a shortcut across a rather deserted park one afternoon as he walked
home from school. In the middle of the park he was suddenly con
fronted by three large young men from the neighboring ghetto. “Don’t
make a move or he’ll shoot you,” one of them said, nodding toward the
third man, who had his hand in his pocket. The three took away
everything Mark had—some change and a worn Timex. “Now keep on
going. Don’t run, don’t even turn around.”
So Mark started walking again toward home, and the three went
in the other direction. After a few steps, however, Mark turned around
and tried to catch up with them. “Listen,” he called, “I want to talk to
you.” “Keep going,” they shouted back. But he caught up with the trio,
and asked if they would reconsider giving him back the watch they had
taken. He explained that it was very cheap, and of no possible value to
anyone except him: “You see, it was given to me on my birthday by my
parents.” The three were furious, but finally decided to take a vote on
whether to give back the watch. The vote went two to one in favor of
returning it, so Mark walked proudly home without change but with the
old watch in his pocket. Of course it took his parents a lot longer to
recover from the experience.
From an adult perspective, Mark was foolish to possibly risk his
life for an old watch, no matter how sentimentally valued it was. But this
episode illustrates an important general point: that a social situation has