"For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.
~Aeschylus~
456 B.C.
This blog has been n my mind for some time now. I have postponed it's writing for a few different reasons.
1. So that the people involved would be obscured by time, especially those who told me of this.
2. To be sure my purpose in writing it was a positive one, not a retaliatory slashing out.
So it come to this. COUNSEL. So very often we see our fellow cagers reaching out for advice or counselling on a situation. This is a good thing! It is part of our strength as a community! In fact, it is probably one of the BEST things about our community, helping, educating, and supporting each other. That is NOT what this blog is about, for that, let me give some backround ...
A time back, i had just begun speaking to a very nice lady here on the Cage, and a short time into our chats, she felt the need to enlighten me on a topic. She had been approached by another person here, one whom I thought was a friend, and a rather good one at that. Long story short, this "friend" had said I was a "nice person" - then went on to declare that I was fat, ugly, and a few other disparaging remarks (there were actually 2 different people that had told me the same story in as short period of time )
So as it turned out, this person was randomly contacting people I interacted with and telling them as many poor remarks as it took to drive them away from me. There is more to this story, but revealing it would identify the person, and I will not do that. Needless to say, I was shocked and sickened by this whole situation. Why in the world would this person befriend me to my face, and then go bout doing such things behind my back?
I guess in the long run the why is not as important as the what. So the moral of the story? Do not take all counsel received, ESPECIALLY unsolicited counsel to heart. People have their own motivations, and gossiping and trash talking others has been the "make me feel better / important/valuable/jealousy ridden, go to exercise of people from a wide variety of sufferings for as long as language has existed.
I was angry and yes, hurt at first that this person had betrayed me in this manner, but today I feel sorry for them, I pity them truly, and will pray for them, that they can someday come in the light and see their actions for what they are, and never do it again. until then my friends - take unsolicited counsel with a grain of salt.
