Sophocles said it's better to "die with honor than to succeed with fraud."My wise, witty, Dr.-House-resembling supervisor recently added that "the narcissist only wants you to hold up the mirror for him." (we love u J!)
In an ever-morphing world of relational trends and practices, tonight I'm thinking about what it means to have honor, integrity, and basically be the opposite of SHADY.
Let's face it. Nobody likes a player, nobody wants to be mislead, nobody wants to get their hopes up only to be crushed out of nowhere. But we still do it. We still think the person will change and WE will be the catalyst. It probably takes a couple of let-downs to learn how to walk away early on.
I just got off the phone with a very perplexed female friend who recently had the whole relationship 180 thing happen to her. We talked about the signs and symptoms of this guy, who randomly started doing the whole "not calling when they said they would" deal, "working late", "on call", "you're overreacting", blah blah blah and the list goes on. Most of us have experienced this before, and while not the most grievous of offenses, it still leaves us with a WTF feeling.
This is something I see a lot with wonderful girl friends of mine (guys too) and I've had it happen to me as well. I'm not all up in arms about it, but I'm puzzled. It just seems like a colossal waste of time. Why so much shadyness? Are people really that unclear about what they want or are they so disconnected from considering the feelings of others? Do we blame technology for turning us into people who are secretly relieved to stay anonymous and distant behind our computer screens?
Maybe this isn't a more recent trend among young men and women. Maybe it's been like this always and all I know is "my time" in the early twenty-first century. But talking to my smart, funny, cute friend tonight and listening to her story reminded me of some of my stories, and how this kind of hollow behavior still makes zero sense.
It also makes me completely grateful and joyful that Life is MORE than this stuff, than the McShadesters and their shady ways. It's bigger than the hurt and disappointment people cause one another, because He who created me is for me and Mighty to save.
2 comments:
i'm so thankful that i don't have to worry about relationships like this anymore. :)
very true! amen to that.
except we would be remiss to not point out that being married may exempt you from these kinds of nuisances, but instead you have a whole new set of obstacles that unmarried people are free of :)
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