Opinion | How to Live Your Life? You’ll Need a Plunger, for Starters

Don’t take on other people’s baggage

I worked on an emergency mental health/suicide hotline. One really busy night, early in my tenure, I answered the line. Before I got even one word out, a voice shouted into the phone, “I’m going to kill myself and then I’m going to kill you,” and hung up. I’ll confess that my first thought was, “At least you’ve got it in the right order.” But a moment later I had an “aha” moment. It’s wasn’t about me. In fact, since the caller had no way of knowing which of 14 staffers had answered, that anger and frustration had nothing at all to do with me.

It’s a lesson I have been able to carry over into my personal life. I no longer take on the baggage of other people’s emotions. I’m responsible for my own feelings and actions but not anyone else’s. (For anyone wondering, we were able to get emergency services to do a welfare check on the caller. No one was harmed or left in danger.) — Liz Sayre, 56

Become a good communicator

Communication is an essential skill for a life that is not taught effectively in school. I was a high school English teacher in a great district (Irvine, Calif.) for 36 years, but despite a rich curriculum, the essentials of interpersonal communication were never addressed. Being assertive rather than aggressive or passive is a skill that can be taught, just as one example.

I also taught health for a few years and was able to fit assertiveness training into that class. If they were mature enough to have sex, I taught, they were also mature enough to broach the subject of birth control before engaging in the act. What to say, how to say it — most flailed for an appropriate gambit. Similarly, they struggled with how to convince parents to extend curfews, how to deal with a bully, how to approach a boss for a raise, how to react when they felt harassed by any authority, how to end a relationship other than by text. I was not afraid to share with them the poor communication that led to my two divorces. There can be a very high cost to the lack of communication skills.

The way you choose to interact with your family, friends, teachers, co-workers, clients, customers, intimate partners — everyone — will determine your happiness and success as much as your knowledge and skills. Every conflict you will ever encounter will require a thoughtful response rather than an impulsive one or a nonresponse. — Laurie Kasparian, 68