When I was young, my life was characterized by a truly weird dynamic. On one hand, I tended to be shunned, teased and ostracized for being out-of-this-world strange. I had few friends and even those were truly odd relationships. On the other hand, however, kids were always seeking me out for advice. I was a combination Ann Landers/Dear Abby for my urban junior high school. It always made me wonder HOW the other kids could view me as both a social pariah AND a wise counselor at the same time. To this day, I've never figured it out.
Of course, the number one issue my fellow classmates wanted my sage advice on had to do with love and courtship -- two things I personally knew little about firsthand because ostracized individuals tend not to attract potential boyfriends and/or girlfriends. Despite this glaring inconsistency, people tended to follow my advice and, more often than not, it worked the way it was supposed to.
The best piece of advice I dispensed over and over again is that you can't make someone like you. We simply don't understand the process of attraction well enough. You can do everything possible to fashion your personality and appearance in such a way as to be the kind of person your beloved should like/love and that person may still not be interested. That said, I always encouraged my cohorts to be themselves because, if a person adopts phony traits and attributes to try to snare another person's affection, sooner or later the REAL you will ooze out and that will most likely end things right then and there.
Regardless of a person's age or maturation level, this is a good concept to grasp. We each waste too much of our valuable time and energy trying to get others to do what we want. To be certain, depending on the dynamics of any given relationship, this tact can work in the short-term, but it never works in the long-term. Sometimes sooner and sometimes later, it all blows up in our face.
Look, we each have enough trouble deciding and doing what we each need to do. How many times each day do any of us think "I should do this" and, instead, we do that! Consequently, if we have enough trouble trying to manage ourselves, it should be easy to see why it's next too impossible to manage anyone else!
When we vainly attempt to try to get someone to like us or do something that we feel is correct/needed/proper, what we're really trying to do is force them from their path to our path.
The problem is that we can only find our own path...of our own accord. Not by force, but by devotion to seeking truth, justice and love.
Of course, the number one issue my fellow classmates wanted my sage advice on had to do with love and courtship -- two things I personally knew little about firsthand because ostracized individuals tend not to attract potential boyfriends and/or girlfriends. Despite this glaring inconsistency, people tended to follow my advice and, more often than not, it worked the way it was supposed to.
The best piece of advice I dispensed over and over again is that you can't make someone like you. We simply don't understand the process of attraction well enough. You can do everything possible to fashion your personality and appearance in such a way as to be the kind of person your beloved should like/love and that person may still not be interested. That said, I always encouraged my cohorts to be themselves because, if a person adopts phony traits and attributes to try to snare another person's affection, sooner or later the REAL you will ooze out and that will most likely end things right then and there.
Regardless of a person's age or maturation level, this is a good concept to grasp. We each waste too much of our valuable time and energy trying to get others to do what we want. To be certain, depending on the dynamics of any given relationship, this tact can work in the short-term, but it never works in the long-term. Sometimes sooner and sometimes later, it all blows up in our face.
Look, we each have enough trouble deciding and doing what we each need to do. How many times each day do any of us think "I should do this" and, instead, we do that! Consequently, if we have enough trouble trying to manage ourselves, it should be easy to see why it's next too impossible to manage anyone else!
When we vainly attempt to try to get someone to like us or do something that we feel is correct/needed/proper, what we're really trying to do is force them from their path to our path.
The problem is that we can only find our own path...of our own accord. Not by force, but by devotion to seeking truth, justice and love.
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