The world is full of many people who take others for a ride just get to some small gain out of it. These people are always using others whether it is to get a job, get money, dump responsibilities or just plain get what they want. Once they have achieved their object, big surprise.... they dump you. I am sure each of us has encountered them and had atleast one incident where after the whole thing you feel cheated and used.
The thing I want to talk about is who's to blame and incidents that follow. The first time around its probably mostly them (People users) and a little bit us (People used). I mean we cannot completely absolve ourselves of fact that we let somebody cheat us. We probably even saw little telltale signs but we let trust in humanity win and continued on our path. I am in no way trying to downplay the creepiness and selfishness of these people by taking some blame on us. But finding a solution always involves recognizing the problem in the first place.
Now for some of us the story ends here.. We learn our lesson albeit the hard way.. We get up, dust ourselves, move on. Next time the person comes around we are guarded, maintain our distance and send them back on their way. But some others fall for it again ( the emotional blackmail, penitence, turning over a new leaf talk and of course pleading for another chance). These people think it is a victory of their faith in humanity and that they are being kindred souls by giving this person (people user) a chance at redemption. But alas once again their trust is betrayed ( most of the times).
I am a big believer of the adage " Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" (this is how the saying really goes Mr. Bush). The second time onwards our responsibility for the incident increases each time. We can claim innocence for the first time (we didn't know any better). The second time we knew better but decided to give a second chance. And then on..we are probably as much a part of the problem as the perpetrator.
The thing about adulthood..people can support, help us as much as we want but we have to stand up for ourselves. Nobody can fight our battles for us...It is our job to do that.
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Better conception = Easier Execution
13 years ago
3 comments:
Well done.. "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" pretty much sums it all. Big surprise that i've been amongst the "used" cases as well... And unfortunately I was also amongst those who didn't learn the whole lesson the first time. But hey, I gave someone a second chance to be a friend and they gave me a second chance to dump them... and so I did. We all recover from all of this much faster than we think. Regeneration is a key process in human nature... and as with everything, time heals. Excellent post.
Thanks a ton J...you know it means a lot coming from you :)
Whether or not we give a second chance also sometimes depends on how close we are to the person. So if we are very close, the second chance is probably a way of justifying to ourselves that our judgement about them wasn't wrong. Well atleast you were smarter the second time. I actually know many people who keep going back umpteen times and no lesson is learnt.
I agree that time heals but sometimes these types of incidents leave scars that last a lifetime.
Agreed.. I am scarred ;)
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