By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
My friends are always sending me funny emails and jokes. My box fills up with them every day, and some of them I have seen “a hundred” times before and I just delete them. But the following story, though I had seen it “a hundred” times before, struck me today, as it really does have a good moral.
An old man, a boy and a donkey Ӭwere going to town.Ӭ The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked.
As they went along they passed some people who remarked, “What a shame ”¦ the old man”¨ is walking and the boy is riding.”
The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed”¨ positions. Later they passed some people who”¨ remarked, “What a shame”¦ he makes that little boy walk.””¨ So they then decided they’d both walk!
Soon they passed some more people”¨ who remarked, “They’re really stupid to walk when they have a decent donkey”¨ to ride.”
So, they both rode the donkey.”¨ Now they passed some people who shamed them by saying, “How awful to”¨ put such a load on a poor donkey.” The boy and man figured they were probably right,”¨ so they decide to carry the donkey.
As they crossed the bridge,Ӭ they lost their grip on the animalӬand he fell into the river and drowned.
The moral of the story? If you try to please everyone, you might as well ”¦ Kiss your ass goodbye!
Too many times in this life I have found myself “trying to please everyone.” Most of the time when I did that, I ended up not only not pleasing anyone, I hurt myself in the process, because I never even considered what I wanted to do or what I thought was reasonable!
I can look back on many of the “adventures” I have had in my life (an ADVENTURE is the RESULT OF POOR PLANNING), and see just where I went wrong. Much of the time, the adventure was caused by me trying to please someone else, or someones (plural) else.
I’m not saying here that you should never listen to what other people advise you, or that you should never take someone else’s opinion into consideration, because sometimes people do have ideas that we never considered that will make a situation easier. There are other times, though, when people have opinions on how we are doing things that are emotionally based “bad ideas,” that we should discard and listen to our own good common sense.
For example, the first critics objected to the old man walking and the boy riding. Number one, both the man and the boy were obviously “okay” with the situation just as it was, and the old man was comfortable walking and the boy was comfortable riding, and frankly, in some situations I’d rather walk than ride a horse or a donkey. So if they were comfortable, as things were, they should have continued doing what they were doing, but they decided to change.
Then the second set of critics so again, the old man and the boy both decided to walk, and they seemed happy enough with that until the third set of critics came along and criticized them for not both riding the donkey ”¦ and so on, until, listening to the last set of critics, they very uncomfortably decided to carry the donkey. Now I don’t know if you can even imagine how the donkey would have squirmed and wiggled trying to get its feet on the ground, but it would have been trying hard to do just that, and it would be no surprise to me that it fell off the shoulders of the old man and the boy and drowned in the river.
I’ve always heard the old saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So if your life is going well, and someone else doesn’t like the way you are running it ”¦ you might think once or twice or even three times before you change how you are doing things.
Psychopaths come into our lives and somehow seem to make us unhappy or dissatisfied with how our successful life is going, and they want us to change something about how we are doing things, even though we may be quite satisfied that our life is going along quite well. Though it is definitely none of their business whether we “ride the donkey or walk,” they have something to say about it, and that is, “we are doing it wrong.” So if you are satisfied with your life, if things are going along well, don’t let someone else make you think you are being abusive to your ass, because if you let them influence you too much, and don’t think for yourself, you may just be like the old man and the boy and lose your ass.
Redwald
One person who would not be surprised by the results of that Independence Day poll is Professor Anders Henriksson, who ten years ago compiled a book called Non Campus Mentis, World History According to College Students. (“From the Stoned Age to the Canadian Missile Crisis… from Joan of Ark to Florence of Arabia… from Mt. Arafat to the Berlin Mall.”) Never mind the “average” American; even college freshmen don’t know much these days, as Henriksson explained:
ElizabethBennett
Redwald-that is pretty funny-and a little sad. I have heard of people who can’t find their own state on a map and that is just disturbing on so many levels.
KatyDid
When my daughter was learning to drive, I reminded her over and over, “Remember!! At least half the people on the road have less than average intelligence”.
It gets Even Scarier when you realize those people can vote.
I was in France, having a cup of coffee at my hotel on Pres Woodrow Wilson Blvd, when the English couple next to me insisted that Americans did not fight in WWI. And they considered themselves intellectuals. That’s why we had gotten into conversation, b/c they were reading an english language economist magazine.
KatyDid
And Lizzy,
It’s funny and disturbing is to ask people to name ONE US American territory… and MOST people can’t. Someone tried to convince me that a person in the USA yet was born in Puerto Rico… was an illegal! Incredible!!!
ElizabethBennett
It is disturbing.
Redwald
Ann Landers (or whoever writes her column for her these days) had heard of a remarkable number of Americans who think you need a passport to vacation in New Mexico.
KatyDid
TMI
Ox Drover
Dear Red, At the rate that Mexican citizens are taking over the southwest US it may not be long before that’s the case.
Yea, I have only been to Phoenix one time…but boy, I’ll pass on the summer weather….it is dry heat but still too hot for my taste. Weather back here has changed though, is much more humid now in the summer than when I was a kid. I have to keep my saddles and wagon harness (anything leather) in the house to keep it from molding mildewing because of the humidity.
Today it is lower than a day or two ago, but still uncomfortable outside. (at noon) so I got all my outside stuff done til just before dark. Did my worm patrol on the tomatoes and peppers (count is 3 bigg’uns! for today) The ducks said thank you!
My opinion is that there is way too little attention paid in school of the BASIC “3 Rs” “Readin, ritin, and rithmatic”
Now cursive writing is not being taught in many schools, kids are taught only to PRINT and keyboard.
English grammar is long gone and I see so many people who use to, two and too interchangeably, or use there and their interchangeably, though they have the same pronunciation the MEANINGS OF two, to and too are DIFFERENT. and Their and There are not the same word, just sound alike.
Kids now can’t count, add, or subtract without a calculator…sometimes not even with one. I was at the grocery store the other day and they had a price for an item and under it was a price PER OUNCE, For simplification I’ll say it was 10 ounces for $1.00, and they had the per OUNCE price as 1 cent per ounce. (off by a factor of 10 and the manager of the store didn’t get it! I couldn’t make him see the difference in 1.0 cent per ounce and 10. cents per ounce.
Why is this important on a blog about psychopaths? Because part of it is that the lack of an educational back ground in the 3 Rs, and literally the illiteracy of many people makes it difficult to get the concept across to them about psychopathy.
The first thing I noticed about this blog when I came here was that the people on this blog seem to be a “cut above” the average people posting on blogs of any kind or subject. More literate, smarter, etc. (and BTW “Being educated” isn’t all about how many years of school you went through, it is about how much you absorbed from what you did go to, and how you have continued to educate yourself.)
It is unfortunate but many of the very people who NEED, DESPERATELY NEED the information on this blog aren’t literate enough to read it and grasp the concepts.
When you factor in the media’s “definition” of a psychopath as Ted Bundy or Charlie Manson….it is difficult to get the concept across that people like Bernie Madoff or Jim McGreevey are ALSO psychopaths, without conscience.
So educating people about psychopaths and other complex subjects is a “start from the very basics” project I think. “Without Conscience” and “snakes in suits” are never going to be selling a million copies each. Martha Stout’s book “The sociopath next door” while it is not a “research” book, may in the end do more to educate “every day people” than all of the well written deeper books around.
We are fortunate here that many of the bloggers on LF are more educated and literate than the “average” blogger on lots of sites, but even with all our smarts and education, we got fooled, and fooled badly. So being in the company of other smart people who also got fooled, makes me feel a little better about myself. There are always new things to learn though about any subject and psychopathy is one of those there is no end to learning about, and about why we (smart people that we are) got hooked by a psychopath (or two) and how we can be more aware in the future.
KatyDid
Oxy,
Someone told me it’s not whether someone was able to fool ya Katy, it’s what ya did once ya knew.
Some people’s ego is such that they can’t admit they were scammed. THOSE are the people are upon whom my husband solidifies his power. How to get through to those people? There are none so blind as those who will NOT see.
Ox Drover
Katy, Yep….not only WILL NOT see but REFUSE to see, don’t WANT to see….and there is no way you can get someone out of denial if they don’t want out of denial.
I’ve been in a canoe in de river DE-NIAL paddling along for lots of years myself, so I can relate…LOL