Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
There are many lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life, but the one that I find most disturbing is that some people do crazy things just for the sake of being crazy.
When I was a kid I’d say around 10 years old, I remember coming home raging to my Mom about why the kids at school were doing stupid stuff. I don’t remember what had specifically happened, but I remember my Mom saying to me, “Everyone doesn’t think like you.”
It continually kept eating at me until I just didn’t want to be bothered with anyone. I am now in my 40s and that reply has stuck dormantly in the back of my head my entire life, but it wasn’t until I moved to New York that I really had to use it regularly. Innocent people have been pushed in front of trains. Drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill shuffle like zombies amongst the public. Children killing other children. White people shouting “Nigger!” at Black people out in the open. Carjackings. Slashings. Domestic violence. Femicide. I’m not saying that New York is a festoon of crime because when you have more people, you just see more shit, but it’s a petri dish of how everyday people in America, no matter where they reside, actually think and move.
It all makes no sense to do any of it when all the aggressor has to do is walk away, yet there are some people whose egos are so fragile, that rather than doing some self-introspection, they feel it necessary to defend the scratch every time, all the time. To me, its senseless and mentally exhausting because if I’m done being around someone, I just walk away, even if it’s mid-conversation. I just feel that I need not waste anymore of my energy on you and much less expend 20 times more energy to assault you. It serves no purpose other than making you look like you weren’t hugged as a child and now lashing out into an embarassing public tantrum because you have little to no emotion regulation.
But I’ve come to realize and accept that there are just people who become so emotional that they don’t care about public embarrassment or consequences. There are just some people who can’t correlate actions with consequences, and these are the type of people I wished I understood sooner, so I’d know to avoid them as an adult to save my time, sanity and money. They are dangerous to be around and can even be unpredictable. I have learned to accept the fact that a “friend” may and will drag me down with them no matter how much they tell me they’re on my side. Some people may even have good intentions, but are train wrecks and don’t know it and will take you down with them, or guilt trip you into doing so by questioning your loyalty to them. Others will be secretly jealous of you and set out to destroy you no matter the consequences they suffer while doing it. Many bad relationships and friends has awaken me to keeping people at arms length, no matter what my empathetic voice says, to protect my mental health.
So today, I have accepted the fact that the crazy things people do, may not have an explanation as to why. They just are. Not everyone will think things out or rationalize things like you and you shouldn’t go out of your way to waste a lot of energy trying to search or understand a reason why. They just do it, and you can only hope you’re not caught in the crossfire. When red flags arise, don’t ignore them and don’t give the person the benefit of doubt, explain-away or make excuses for their behavior. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time and immediately disassociate yourself from them because they’re going to bring you nothing but problems.
Choose your friends wisely. 🦉
