Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer
We want certain things, need certain things, go after and accomplish certain things, and yet in the end, after all of our maneuvering to get it all done, we often end up throwing it out like a burned meal. Oops. At what point is it no longer salvageable?
We all have drawers or closets or barns or mobile homes out back or storage units or whole rooms devoted to stuff that we may never ever use. Being ruthless enough to get at it and pare it down to size, whittle that stuff to a smaller container and then ultimately fill and fire or throw away or give away or sell or sail that leftover junk and abandonable stuff is a real chore. It is hard to be that self-loving. It is a point of ruthless tough love.
Family heirlooms and junk left to us from well-meaning relatives and those who are re-gifting us with things that they full well know they should have thrown away, these are the debris we get stuck with. Some of us are very tactfully capable of dumping that crud in a receptacle on the way out of town.
But most of us are given these things like an albatross that they expect to see hanging on the walls of our homes for eons. 30 years later they will ask what we did with that special gift that they labored to buy for us especially. Oh, that wonderful thing!!!! Yes, with 4 exclamation marks.
When our lives are over and we make out our wills, we will distribute to our heirs the sum total of the wealth we have accumulated, and it will include that hideous piece of junk that has been slung through the nightlight of inheritance, generation after generation, and in the end, we will see it hanging generations hence until some brave soul will have the presence of mind to throw that hunk of junk out the door for once and for all, but not until it has been loaded and unloaded by family and ancestors all, friends and movers, girlfriends and ex-lovers doing that one last favor, moving that thing that Uncle Harry never had the guts to toss.
This metaphor is all well and good when we are talking about a piece of junk, but what about relationships; now that is bound to be way more difficult, right? We can’t objectify others. People are not objects. Not things. They are human, after all. But if they become objects to us, they are not being treated humanely, are they? So, as soon as humiliation enters the picture, the tough love policy hits full force. Simple, really. We are done as soon as the sarcasm is the way we deal with others. They all must go.
And don’t we know others who deal with everything through sarcasm? Are they your safe person? Do you trust these people for your most tender secrets? IS this the relationship you dreamed of? Be ruthless and put that relationship out of its misery as soon as possible. If you cannot stop being sarcastic and demeaning, then walk away. Curbside it. If your own personality is the humiliating force, dump that garbage. Whew! What did he say? Yep, you heard me.
IF your own personality is busy being a difficult, self-righteous, and negative critic of all things human and domestic, alive and dead, organic and inorganic, get rid of it. Re-invent yourself and learn to be optimistic and user-friendly. It’s time to give up on being a stick in the mud.
You can really apply this thinking to everything. When it is junk to you, don’t pass it along. Drop it in the trash. No more wadded up napkins in your pockets. No more loose slips of paper and broken debris, and no more lost moments on things that do not matter. Make it all count. Get real and ruthless with yourself. If it does not bring intimacy into your life, what good is it doing you anyways?
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