I use to say that to my friends more and more when they enter in conflict with someone and suffer from it. “If you are the smarter one, you are the one who have to make the effort”. It is unfair but it is the way it is.

Ex: My friend Shelly and her mother in law. Her mother in law is very cheap towards her and her newborn child. But at the same time, she want my friend to love her. Shelly has a very strong character so she is very tough toward her mother in law (who live with her and her husband) and things go very wrong. She knows she is the one who should do the effort and take on her.

Ex 2: Me and my boss. We had a big fight and I have been very passive aggressive – not saying hi for instance, silence treatment… But I know I will be the first one to say “I am sorry and I forgive you. Hope you can forgive me“. Even if he is the one who fire first.

I employ the word smart loosely here. I don’t think anyone is smarter than anyone. I think society wrongly make us believe that having strong technical skill (in math,, physics..) is what smart is. I don’t agree. 

People who can not read and write can be super smart. You can be smart at dancing, smart at theatre, smart at drawing, smart at reading people, smart at understanding yourself. It has nothing to do with sciences. There is this theory about multiple intelligences. I think this is what is closer to the truth.

So when I say here “If you are smarter” I really mean “if you can see things the other person can not see”. We all have a unique vision of thing. Hard to expect others to see the same. If you have time you can seat down and try to teach them. But all ideas are like a seed, like Inception. You can plant it in someone’s mind but it will take time for them to totally get it. But they will.