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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Gary Smalley 
 
 
Question: 
 
People irritate me. What do I do about it? 
 
Answer:  
 
So, you are irritated by people. So am I—so is everybody else. But 
here’s what’s great about irritations. Irritations are emotions. You feel 
like their behavior’s obnoxious or gross, or it just bugs you, and so you 
think, “If I could just get that person to change. . . .” But that’s not 
the secret to irritations. 
 
Let’s say somebody’s eating and the milk is dribbling off their chin, or 
the way they laugh is just piercing. You know, “If I could just get this 
person to change. . . .” You’ve probably said it, especially if it’s a 
spouse or a child, a hundred times. 
 
Here’s the key: it’s a waste of time to tell people about their behaviors 
that irritate you, when 99% of the time, they don’t change. And when 
you mention it sometimes, some people will just do it just to bug you 
all the more. But here’s the key: irritations have nothing to do with 
them or it. Irritations are inside of you.  
 
Think about it for a minute. You’re the one irritated, and it has nothing 
to do with them because it’s inside of you. You have some area of your 
life—we call them logs in your eyes. You and I are not perfect. You and 
I have a great deal of maturing to do. I have a lot of changes that 
need to take place in my life. People who are irritating simply are 
reflecting the logs in your eye, and I have yet to find an example of 
somebody who’s irritated by somebody else, and they don’t have 
 
 
something similar in their own life they should be working on 
themselves.  
 
I can guarantee you. If you’re irritated by something somebody is 
doing, or the weather, or whatever it is, I guarantee you, you are 
doing the same thing or something similar. It’s almost like it’s God’s 
way of showing us what we need to be working on. 
 
That’s how I look at irritation today. Instead of trying to change 
people, and making me happier by them changing, what I do is I work 
on me by changing my own beliefs that are stored in my heart—in my 
subconscious, you could say—and when I do that, it takes on a whole 
new meaning when you’re irritated. It just gives me more things to 
work on in my own life, and I love it, because I can’t change people 
anyway. 
 
I’ve asked people to change, how many times? Just like you, hundreds 
of times. It never works. Work on yourself. That’s the key. 
 
 
 
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