I think I just witnessed an act of the upmost self absorbed and self centered kind. I am not going to get into the details of it, but it lead me to think about some things.
Some people simply EXPECT you to take on their issues. You are fully expected to give up your time and energy and that somehow you are obligated to eat their shit because you happen to be their friend, relative, room mate, spouse, partner, whatever. Some how these labels give them the sense of entitlement to take you emotionally hostage, and if you don't respond to their power tripping - they become hostile or resort to some form of emotional blackmail in attempts to make you feel bad (or even worse) for not relenquishing your entire being to their plight. Well fuck that noise.
I think it is important to understand that when one has an issue or a situation, the expectation of support should NOT be primary. What I mean is this: You suffer from a devestating situation as a result of the choices you made. It's yours. You own it. Therefore, it should not be expected in anyway that the people around you are going to give up their time and assist, aid or even support you in that ownership. But most of us are pretty lucky. Shitty things happen, and there are people in our lives who care about us and are willing to give us a hand, whether it is emotionally, financially, spiritually even, it doesn't matter. But to demand and expect upon demand the support we feel we need is utterly selfish. Life goes on for everyone. Even if the drama in our own lives seems to consume everything in our sight does not mean that it consumes every waking moment of the people around us. We believe that because the person has an emotional investment in us we are entitled to their time and energy (and why, because we bestow them with a label?) regardless of what is going on in their lives. No wonder people after a time begin to despise each other, we are constantly in a power struggle because of our inablility to take ownership of our own issues. We have to throw it onto someone else because we can't admit to ourselves that its our issue, our hang up, our fault even.
The saddest part of this is we all do it. But maybe if we take the time and realize that the issues we have in our lives are ours and not anyone elses, that we need to take the responsiblilty - we will eventually come to accept the terms and conditions of the consequences and try to regain our personal power through other avenues rather than beating down on our loved ones with demands and expectations.
Yeah, yeah, and I know there are exceptions... but you get what I mean.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Had to think about commenting on this one for a long time. It's quite interesting what you have to say, and I would tend to agree with it. Makes me curious as to what event sparked the rant...
At the risk of being too honest, it does seem as though there's a wee bit of hypocrisy going on there... unless there's been significant changes I'm unaware of.
Of course it's hypocritical. To say that I don't do it would be absurd. You, myself, everyone has been conditioned for generations to place expectations on our family and friends. It's simply something I've begun to notice about our nature as social beings and how damaging it is, and I would like to make the effort to at least recognize it when I do it - and learn from it. The anger I feel is more geared towards the lack of realization in ALL of us, not just at this one individual (that's why I used We, instead of him/her).
I could even be so bold as to say I EXPECTED that you would say something like that. Hence the eloquent response... aharhar.
Post a Comment