braintissue

When thinking about the life lessons we are taught, we try to block out those painful things we are going through and replace them with things that are a bit more comforting to think about. What we are not realizing is that the trials we go through and keep on going through are the lessons that we are supposed to be learning.

If there is one thing that I know a lot about, it is adversity.

Adversity is a strange thing. We hate it when it visits us, but the minute that an applicable event touches our lives we are so glad that we went through what we went through at the times that we did because it taught us a valuable lesson. We complain and sulk about things and wish like hell that they were better even though we know that the thing we are going through is the thing that we need to go through.

OK- so SOME of us know this but the rest of us continue to fight it

Have you ever punched a brick wall? If so, and when you did, did said same brick wall crumble before your eyes or was it you who crumbled from the pain? And why were you hitting the wall to begin with? Most of the time we only see the proverbial brick wall in front of us without looking to the left or the right to find if there is another way around the wall. We would far rather fight something in our way, ignoring the reason that it is there to begin with.It always baffles me when people who are smart, popular, secure and essentially good cannot get it through their thick heads that they continue to go through the things that they go through, over and over again, because the last time they went through it they learned nothing, ignored the problem and (yikes) handled it the way that they keep handling it.

Believing that treating the problem the same way as it has always been treated will eventually make it go away is not only wishful - it is foolish.

Like a dog returning to its own vomit

Human beings are creatures of habit. We think we know how to handle a problem - all those things we label as a problem– but we don’t ever see that what we do every time we have this problem is ignore that there is a real reason as to why we keep going through the exact same thing over and over and over again. I have said it a million and one times: we get what we think about it.

Whether we want something or not, the more we dwell on something, the closer it becomes to being part of our reality.Those things that keep on happening to you are things that you have ignored in the past, lessons which needed to be learned that were just passed off as being something that you just did not care to deal with. I do it. You do it. We all need to stop doing it.

I have a bad habit of saying things that need to be said

I get that fabulous trait of saying whatever pops into my mind from my dad. Over the years I have done my fair share of hurting peoples’ feelings and not realizing it. Sure, there were times that what I said really did need to be said, but then when I would stick another 2 cents into the mix ,problems would occur and feelings would get hurt and people would stop talking to me and it would turn into a great big mess.

NOW, I understood then what I totally know now, and it isn’t that some things should be left unsaid (that is the furthest thing from the truth) but that some things should be said to people nicely because that is the way that things are supposed to be.There are times that I look back and can see where it is that I meant to hurt people, to get the one up on them, to make sure that they knew that I thought their pain was somehow funny. And if it wasn’t funny, I rested easily knowing that since I caused the pain, their pain was bigger than mine and the added extra bonus is that I caused it.

Responsibility is a two way street

There is another thing about this thing about getting one’s feelings hurt and having to deal with the pain. Are you ready?Sometimes, when that thing that needs to be said gets said, the person who it was said to gets their feelings hurt and does not say anything about it. NOW, if you are one of those people who tends to get their feelings hurt easily but refuses to say anything about it, the fault should be equally shared with the person who said what they said. You cannot continue to go through life being the poor little victim who got their little feelings hurt and you cannot go through your life feeling like everyone owes you an apology for hurting your little feelings. The world does not work that way! You need to stop being a victim of your own self pity and start looking at your Self and understand that what was said needed to be said, was not said to hurt you and dammit - grow up already and realize that there needs to be a change made in your thinking!

And there is a method to the madness of causing hurt

Being hurt is like being slapped in the face with a hot spatula. It would sting like hell, and you would remember it happening, and all those feelings that you felt when it happened would always be there. The most important thing in this is that you need to remember not only the feelings of hurt that you felt, but also and especially the feelings that you felt when you intentionally cause hurt to someone else!

There are people whom I have known my entire life who intentionally hurt others to keep themselves from having to face the hurts they have caused. There is no need to constantly be the one in control of a situation. Situations that are not comfortable can be avoided, but the truth is that those conflicts are the very things that teach us what we need to learn.

There have been plenty of times that I have tried to become friends with people to whom I am related, but every time I try to start over again, my past sneaks up on them and reminds them of all the things that they perceive to have been all because what I said did not resonate with their agenda. What many do not think about is that there has been immeasurable hurt placed on me since I was a child. Do these people see it this way? Maybe. Maybe not, but this is not my burden to bear and it never was.

If you feel like you have to hurt or manipulate someone in order to make them feel like they are not worthy of your time, are not worthy of even considering how they might feel after you do what it is that you are planning, and you go ahead and do what you have always done, you deserve every single terrible thing that is going to come your way. The Universe, God, The Almighty, that head of lettuce that you have adorned with glitter and placed atop a pedestal and have thusly named Ralph the II - all these Higher Beings see what is in your heart, know your intention, can tell if you are doing things because you want to teach someone a lesson (which, by the way, is not your duty to do so), want to make sure that they understand your message (even though you may not have bothered to see the hurt you have caused in sending the message), want to make it understood that they have no rights in anything that has to do with the life that they share with you (this could be any family member - a spouse, a sibling, a child, an uncle or a cousin…) - whatever it was, was not ever your business trying to remind them of something that you have been reminding them of for years and years, maybe even their entire lives long.

Just because someone is hurting, this does not mean that you have the right to hop on in and try to save them

Advice is something that people seek out. It simultaneously is also something that if it is not sought out should not be given. The world is full of well meaning people who mean to help others with their advice. Though it might not be that these same advice givers are trying to tell someone what they should or should not do, the bottom line is that advice that is not sought is also usually not welcomed. If you are the one to be delving into a problem that is not yours, trying to help someone else with a problem that is similar but unique to the other person’s life, the last thing you want to do is try to help someone who is only venting their frustrations….because then comes along the spider called “I know what you are going through because I went through it myself…”

There is nothing worse than having someone else tell you about their pain while you are going through your own

I try hard - really, I do - to not use my own pain to measure against someone else’s. Though there may be similarities in the pains that we each go through, the truth is that each situation is different. The advice that you are trying to give may not do anyone well enough to feel better about the problem at hand. Recently it was brought to my attention that the idea of my ever working in a normal 9-to-5 job may not be the right fit for me, and the truth is that I have known this for years but have tried relentlessly at fitting into that mold that labels me as “gainfully employed.”

I have been self-employed for years and this is the first time in my life that I have looked for something to gainfully employ me .The reality is that I know inherently that any job that I get that would be acceptable in the eyes of society would be a job which within a year I would either lose or walk away from. The gainful employment which I am given will have to be something where I have a LOT of control and where creativity is something that the employer needs badly. I am fine with being told what to do, but what I am told needs to be comensurate with the dollar value placed on it.

This is the curse of the formerly self-employed-but-trying-to-be-self-employed-again . We are remarkably dependable, responsible, good to people who need our talents but we are really, really, really bad at realizing this until time comes that we need to find gainful employment and we are labeled as “over qualified,” “intimidating,” “very talented but…(fill in the blank with silly label),” and you know what? It is probably all true. However, just because it is true it does not mean that it is right.

People need to work, but what people who need to work do not need to hear are more reasons as to why they will not be hired, even though they are all these great descriptors that make someone like me feel like I am actually as good as I say and prove I am at what I do, it is doing the opposite. Trying to help someone who does not want more than some venting room is like trying to quell an angry pit bull with a Beggin’ Strip - it is not going to help and you stand the chance of having your head chewed off of your shoulders.

And then the fight ensues

OK, we won’t call it a fight. We will call it someone with a savior complex trying hard to pat themselves on the back a little too hard, one too many times, and now has come to rescue you and you just do not want any part of it. Again, you might need to hear it, but what you do not need is one more person telling you to not feel sorry for yourself, telling you that they know what you are going through, telling you that you are not the only person going through this, and probably a whole lot of other crap that just does not resonate with your life at the moment. You are the one who makes your life what it is, no matter how it is, and no matter what happens in that life. You are the builder of your own dreams, the ruler of your own Universe, and what you do in it is what really matters.

You can tell your spouse over and over again to quit smoking, to quit drinking, to not eat an entire box of Oreos even though you totally understand the reason why, but unless and until they realize that you are simply trying to be of good service, the truth is that you are not. You are being a pain in the butt, and you are doing something that is not yours to do. People only need to be told one time the way that you feel, because after all, the way that you feel simply and at the very core middle of it all is only your opinion.

You can talk and talk and talk, but until they listen it is just hot air.

Learn from those times that seconds seemed like hours

That is pretty much it, guys. There are no snappy metaphors and no beating around the bush is needed - learn from what has been done and said to you, and more importantly, learn from the mistakes you made when you gave unsolicited advice (especially when you knew better than to do it), when you decided quite by yourself that you had an agenda that saved a group from hurting but continued to hurt the one who you have hurt forever (because they should be used to it already, right? Yeah…just like those Columbine kids who shot everyone were used to it…), or maybe did something that you meant well when you did it but you knew better than that it would not hurt if you did it and the truth is that something deep inside of you either wanted to hurt the person, wanted to control certain outcomes in the person’s life, wanted something to make yourself feel better, even if that meant that they would again be hurt.

Though they should not be hurt, the truth is that people know who they can trust and who they cannot trust and usually, it is this intuition that tells them who they can and cannot trust. So, think about it - why does that one person who you tried to help you ended up hurting? More importantly, what have you learned in the greater scheme of things in the world related to the both of you? Have you learned anything at all, or are you still right and are they still wrong? Have you realized why it is that you may feel that they are the reason for many hurts or is it that you are so blinded by the ego in you that you refuse to see the hurt that has just sat there like a lump of dog crap for so long that it is more like furniture now than it ever was anything resembling help?

What is it that you did to someone else that you meant to do in order to teach them a lesson when perhaps the lesson was not that they needed to learn from you but that they needed to learn it period?It may never have occured to anyone that maybe the lesson is not for them to learn from you, but for you to learn that maybe they really do not need you to teach it to them?

Something to think about, ain’t it?

I LOVE YOU ALL!

MAPU

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