5. Would you like to meet him outside the institution? (cont.)

For example, if he were to ask you, \"How much monthly salary do you make?\" you could reply jokingly with a smile, \"Why do you ask? Have you found a luring job for me?\" If he says, \"Not really, I just wanted to know\", you could say, \"Salaries these days are a great problem. It seems to be caused by high oil prices!\" He might then say, \"Well, what do oil prices have to do with salaries?\" You could then say, \"Oil prices are what determine other prices. Don't you see that wars happen because of it?\" He may say, \"No. That is not true. There are other reasons for wars. The world is full of wars nowadays…\" Thus, he would forget about his initial question. How to deal with a meddlesome person So what do you think? Did you not cleverly get out of the predicament? Similarly, if he were to ask you about your job or where you will travel to next, simply ask him, \"Why do you ask? Do you wish to travel with me?\" He would say, \"I don't know, but tell me anyway!\" You could say, \"If you did travel with me, you would have to pay for the tickets!\" He would then begin to speak about the tickets and forget the original topic. This is how we can escape from such scenarios without causing problems amongst ourselves. Halt… If you've had to face someone who interferes with matters that do not concern him, then be better than him. Try to seek the best exit from the situation without hurting him. How to deal with a meddlesome person (31) Do not criticise! A man sits in his friend's car, and the first thing he says is, \"Wow! How old your car is!\" He enters his house and upon seeing the furniture he says, \"Oh, you still haven't changed your furniture?\" When he sees his children, he says, \"MashaAllah! They are very sweet! But why don't you give them better clothes to wear?\" When his poor wife gives him food, after having to stand in the kitchen for hours on end cooking, he looks at the food and says, \"O God! Why didn't she cook rice? Oh! It is lacking in salt. I wasn't in the mood to eat this!\" He enters a fruit shop to find it full of a variety of fruits. He asks the shopkeeper, \"Do you have mangoes?\" The shopkeeper says, \"No. We only have them during the summer.\" He says, \"OK. Do you have watermelon, then?\" The shopkeeper replies, \"No.\" His complexion then changes. He says, \"You don't have anything here! Why did you even bother opening up a shop?\" and leaves the shop. He forgets that the shop has more than forty other types of fruit. No doubt, some people bother you by their frequent criticisms. Nothing seems to please them in the world. They cannot notice, in a delicious meal, except a strand of hair that mistakenly dropped therein. They cannot notice in a clean garment except a drop of ink that affected it by error. Neither can they notice in a beneficial book except an innocent printing error. Hence, none seems to be saved from their criticisms. They always have comments to pass. These people scrutinise everything, be it great or small. I know a person, who was a colleague of mine during our secondary education and university days, and our relationship to this day continues, except that I do not remember him ever making a positive comment about anything. I asked him about a book I wrote, which was praised by many people, and of which hundreds of thousands of copies were printed, and he coldly replied, \"Well, it is ok, but it has an inappropriate story. I didn't like the font size, either. The print quality is also poor\", and so on. I asked him once about someone's performance in the Friday sermon, and he did not seem to mention anything positive, until he became more burdensome for me than a mountain. I then wouldn't ask him for his opinion with respect to anything, because I already knew it would be negative. You can say the same about someone who expects everyone to be exemplary, thus, he expects his wife to keep the house 100% clean twenty-four hours a day. He also expects his wife to Do not criticise! keep the children nice and clean all day. If he is visited by guests, he expects her to cook the best dishes. If he sits with her, he expects her to talk about the best topics. He expects the same from his children. He wants them to be perfect at everything, excellent with his friends and with whomever he meets on the street or a marketplace, etc. If anyone of them falls short, he would consume him by his speech, over-criticise and repeatedly pass comments, until people become bored of him. This is because he cannot see on a white page but a black spot. Such people usually punish themselves by their nature.