With Idealism regarding colleagues at work. We often have these thoughts: "They should know better. They should be smart. Why are they so dumb? Why can't they do it? Why do I always have to do it?" It's so often that we have these thoughts that our colleagues are not as smart as they should be. "They are not as gifted as they should be. Why aren't they working the full day? Why are they drinking water so much during the day? Why do they go away?" That's idealism regarding our colleagues.
Now as you are developing in your meditation practice, why is it sometimes you become slothful and have torpor? Why is it that sometimes you are irritated? Why is it sometimes that you are bored? Reflect on this and discover for yourself. Those are the same reasons why your workmates get bored, they are full of sloth and torpor or whatever else.
As to their actual abilities, maybe you are expecting too much. It's like every teacher in school. They have a peace of paper, it's called a certificate, it's a university certificate, diploma, call it whatever you want. It actually states on the diploma that this person has such and such degree, etc. Then they have a teacher's certificate as well, that says this person has qualified to teach English, science, or whatever else. They have these pieces of paper, they went to school, they all basically went to school for the same amount of time, went to university, got their credentials, whatever.
Every teacher in every class that you had, had these pieces of paper, right? Were they all equal? Was everyone of your teachers equal? Were they all great? Or were they all mediocre? Were they all crummy? They weren't equal, were they? But they had equal papers. They had taken the same amount of classes as everybody else. Did you expect them to be absolutely equal? No, even as a little kid you know this. Slowly we realized by the time we had our third or fourth teacher, hey, they are all different. We fall in love with some and we can't wait to get out of the other one's class, we hate them so much. Then there are all those mediocre one's, which are the majority right? The ones we didn't really hate, we didn't like, we just had to do their class. They were all different, and we realized growing up that our teachers were all different.
Now how common is it that when we are at work, a lot of people think everybody should work equally. Everyone should be just as smart. Everyone should know what we know. Wow, that's really strange, isn't it? We have learned this lesson as a little kid from our teachers. By the time we get to work, somehow it doesn't quite work right. We don't remember the lesson. We don't remember this lesson applies with our friends. We don't remember that it applies with people we meet at a meditation retreat. Even though I tell everybody, "some of you are going to learn quickly, some of you learn slowly. But if you are here you will all develop, you are all going to get it." But somehow we have this idealistic notion that, "that person" over there, should be better than what they are.
Reflect more about this. Reflect more about the fact that everybody is a different type of living being. If we look outside, we can see lots of different trees. We have mango trees, we have cashew nut trees, we have papaya trees and we have coconut trees. They are all fruit trees. Do they all look the same? Some are healthy, some are sick, some give a lot of fruit, some give a little, etc. etc. It's the same with human beings.
So to relax your idealism with your workmates, some of them just can't do better than what they are doing. Some of them don't know how to be any better. Sometimes it's you who has to help teach them or show them. Or even at least talk to the big boss and say, "Excuse me, I think so and so is having trouble." So that the big boss then can try to help the person. But to actually expect the person to be different, to have all this idealism that they should be different, they should be better, they should be what "I want them to be" that's where the Dukkha comes. Not understanding that we are actually very different creatures with different levels and abilities.