Everything Nac

Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer

For those who learn early on to use finagling and maneuvering and manipulating and process handling to obtain what they want, they have only to find someone who does not care about that game to realize that whining and begging and pleading and dragging your feet will only go so far. Now, those who are pushing and aggressive and agitating and shaming always look at the whiners as not being winners, but then neither are the bullies or the self-righteous or the arrogant. Might makes right in the eyes of those who see possession as 9/10ths of the law, but then without their making others afraid of them, without the threats they impose, they really have nothing, especially not respect. For some of those, respect means nothing as long as they have cooperation, but that is exactly the same stance as those who manipulate through whining and belly aching. Both sides of that coin just think of themselves as being entitled.

So, either you are a responsible person or you are, as Jay Carter calls it, re-enacting your previous patterns. A responsible person is able to respond in the moment without previous patterns of judgment: race, creed, color, or any other lineage of adjustment. If all you can do is duplicate what you have done before in similar circumstances, you have essentially become a hammer looking for a nail.

The person who is on welfare and only knows how to game the system in order to continue services for an entire life time has not met any personal objectives of substance by doing so. Welfare, in and of itself, is a pathway for getting back on your feet. If you never get on your feet, you are disabled, even if your legs are not injured. The disability is social. Likewise, the person who games the system to continue taking advantage of the system at large in order to gain a foothold is equally socially disabled. Bullies and victims are both ill if they stay there. If your narrative is that you have had it rough or that you had to scrap and save or that you had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways or that your family was this or that or that you never were good at math or reading or healthy or whatever, then you have given yourself an alibi. The question is not what happened but rather what you did about what happened.

I was poor and I stayed poor because that is who I am. I was poor and I became rich and money defines my success. I was weak and now I am a bully. I was a bully and now I am an older bully. I was a pain in the butt and now I am a real ____hole. I reacted as a kid and I am still reacting, following the patterns I have always used to do the same things to others that they did to me because that is only fair since that was done to me. How can we get beyond retaliation, rejection, reacting, and disrespecting others and ourselves so that we can respond in the moment to what is going on as it happens?

Let’s get really honest about it. Why don’t we deal with things as they come up instead of waiting until they stack up like airplanes at an airport? Boundaries are a lot of work. We don’t want to have to tell others not to incur on our territory. The reality is that it is this kind of thinking that gets abuse going in the first place. You never did anything about this before. Why are you worried about it now? When it cost $1, we were not worried. But, when the costs got above $1000, we noticed the bill. Why did that take so long? We were hoping that the party involved would become responsible. We were hoping this person would notice our discomfort. We were hoping they would notice the vein popping out the side of our forehead! But it was not their forehead and we weren’t saying anything about it so it must have been okay. The trouble is, now that we are saying something about it, they are arguing that it must not be time to change since they are still wanting to do whatever the offending thing is. The thought that we should have said something sooner is mitigated by the fact that saying anything now means nothing!

Reacting people do not want change that does not fit their agenda. Responsible people see the need and respond accordingly. If your objective is to stay where you are, to never change, not to ever give in, never to make a compromise, never let go, never give a sucker an even break, see everything as only business, take advantage, drag your feet, be ridiculing, concentrate on humiliating others, think the world owes you, feel entitled, or in some other way always react to life, then you are led by reacting. You are imprisoned by your past. Success is staying where you are and have been, even if you have more because ultimately it is just more of the same.

If you can reinvent yourself, go ahead, let go, be in the moment, allow that others have their reasons, see the big picture, and can acknowledge your own part in how things have been and see the need for change, then you are a responsible person. Responsible doesn’t mean you can do more than you can do. That’s reactive and unrealistic. Responsible means you do what you do well and you create in front of you an update over what was behind you. This is not about acting or being perfect. It is about being your best in any given situation and not giving a pat answer that is just a brush off to life. “Nothing is more difficult than being honest with yourself.” The reactive person says, “I am being 100% honest with myself.” The responsible person says, “You’re telling me.”

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