Long, but good… enjoy.<\/p>\n
The Backstory<\/b><\/p>\n
A few days ago I gave someone an unwelcome opinion, with a very small proverbial mallet (those who know me will know this is very unlike me – I usually use a very large sledgehammer, assuming an initial attempt at reason has failed). This caused me to get in a discussion with my girlfriend today about how people approach things – my approach is unique and has to do with my life philosophies. And this got me discussing one of my philosophies in life. And I thought it’d be great to have a blog post on the theories in that discussion. What follows I’ve told to many people, but it’s never been written down. One day I’ll probably write a book about it, but in the mean time, here it is… enjoy.<\/p>\n
The Concept<\/b><\/p>\n
Unlike most people, I would much rather someone hate my guts then not remember me. I’d rather someone hate me with a black passion than not know who I am. And that’s not because I want attention. Most people can’t handle that kind of confrontation, but this preference is ingrained into who I am.<\/p>\n
And A Backing Philosophy<\/b><\/p>\n
The majority of people in this world are complacent. They opt for the comfortable path, the easy road. We’re all guilty of this, myself included. We’ve all stayed in a relationship longer than we should have because it was easier than leaving. We’ve all let someone win an argument we cared about because we couldn’t be bothered to battle it out. We’ve all turned down job opportunities because they involved too much change. You’ve done it and I’ve done it. But as something that is important to me, I make a conscious effort to avoid complacency as much as possible. When things are too easy, and too comfortable, it’s a good sign you need to mix things up.<\/p>\n
But sadly, I’ve observed it doesn’t appear most people do it occasionally. On the contrary, they become very<\/b> complacent. The stop noticing new opportunities because it would be too uncomfortable to seize them. They stop being aware of their potential, their selves, their abilities, and their passions. They don’t see their environment. They stay in the same job because it’s easier. They stay with the same person because it’s easier. They stay in the same town because it’s easier. Admittedly, change is scary, but I think people settle far too easily.<\/p>\n
One of my goals in life (short of never getting too comfortable) is to kick these people hard enough to make them wake up. To make them sit up and notice — even if only for a second. I want people to have to stop their monotonous routine, put a rest to their never-ending day, the job they hate, the significant other they kind of love, the shell they’ve created for themselves and look up and go “what the fuck<\/i> was that?” Because in that moment there is a chance they’ll notice something – something other than me, that is. If they have<\/b> to notice something outside of their shell, then hopefully they notice many things outside of their shell.<\/p>\n
If I make someone question their beliefs, their ideas, their ideals, their religion, their way of life, their choices, their-self, their rituals, their routines, their job, their spouse, or anything of significant importance to them, then I believe I’ve accomplished something great and wonderful. If someone questions their belief and finds it to still be true, do they not have a more strong belief now? Are they not more secure in believing that (even if they were secure in it before)? And if they find their belief to be wrong, what a major step in their life! I don’t see a downside here. So yes, I believe that’s something they benefit from, but not because I did it.<\/p>\n
Philosophy Two<\/b><\/p>\n
See, I also believe we’re all here to interact and to effect each other. If I have no lasting effect on you and you have no lasting effect on me, then what came of our relationship? Relationships are about learning, growing, and changing based on new interactions. True growth, I believe, happens from within. It happens when you’re forced to look inside, pour all the contents out and understand it all, figure out what you need, what works, what doesn’t. It’s a painful but fulfilling process. And most people will never do that. But I believe it’s a process that should happen several times in your life.<\/p>\n
My girlfriend has definitely caused me to rethink some things, as did my ex-girlfriend. As have all of my good friends. And I don’t mean rethink what I’ll have for dinner, I mean rethink fundamental concepts of my being. That’s what life is all about.<\/p>\n
And if you won’t rethink them, ask yourself why not? What are you afraid of? Change?<\/p>\n
And Philosophies One and Two Come Together…<\/b><\/p>\n
Anyway, because I think relationships are about learning from each other and having effects on each other, and because I believe people are complacent and one of the greatest effects I<\/i> have been able to have (and have been thanked for many, many, many times) is jarring that complacency if even for a few minutes.<\/p>\n
Let me provide an example so you see I’m not a selfish asshole. This is not something I’ve shared with very many people. And only a few people read my blog. But I decided I’m okay if its publicly known. Many years ago there was a girl who I was friends with. I loved (and still love) her very much. She confided many secrets in me. And secrets are something I take very<\/b> seriously. But one day, for the first and only time in my life, I made a conscious choice to break that trust. I told her biggest secret to her best friend and her mom. And it saved her life. She never spoke to me again. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t kill me, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even close to matter. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Her life was significantly more important to me than her friendship.<\/p>\n
She hates me, but I had an effect on her life. One that will indeed be with her forever. I don’t even know if she knows that, but again, that doesn’t really matter. And despite the fact the effect was extremely painful to her, it was still a positive effect.<\/p>\n
Not all effects are positive. I’m quite happy with neutral effects as well (though I obviously would never break someone’s trust unless I felt it was a life-or-death situation). A neutral effect is better than no effect, even if it’s painful. And most people find most effects at least a little disturbing – not many people are used to having their lives questioned. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. For the record, I prefer not to have bad effects on people’s life. That’d be a bit too extreme. Balance is good in life.<\/p>\n
So I Suppose You Want Me To Relate That To My Approach?<\/b><\/p>\n
So, given all of that, it applies to my approach greatly. But you need one more philosophy before I can do that.<\/p>\n
Philosophy Four-Thousand-Seven-Hundred-Sixty-Two<\/b><\/p>\n
This is a side-step, so bear with me here. When someone tells me something, does something, etc., I give them my honest reaction. I don’t sugar coat, I don’t baby them. Now, if someone shows up with a craptastic haircut, yeah I’m not going to tell them it’s craptastic, obviously. But on actual things, I tend to not sugar coat. If someone were to tell me they want to date someone I know to be a complete fucktard, I’m going tell them they’re a dumbshit and that they shouldn’t date them. If someone tells me they’re going to drink a gallon of Tabasco Sauce, I’ll tell them they’re a dumbfuck and smack them upside the head.<\/p>\n
Now if that doesn’t work, I’ll usually try a variety of other approaches, but to sugarcoat my reaction, in my opinion, isn’t being honest. I don’t actually believe “perhaps a gallon of Tabasco Sauce might upset your stomach and hurt your mouth” because that’s a big bag of burning shit. The truth is that this person has hit a complete lapse intelligence in each and every way and needs a good smack upside the head. Their mom can sugarcoat stuff for them. I find it my obligation as a friend to be up front and honest.<\/p>\n
And if you ask my friend Tim, he’ll tell you I take everything at face value. Even sayings like “it’ll be okay” I don’t take to mean “I have no idea how to help you, you’re fucked” like most people. I take it as “wow, this person believes things are going to be okay.” Well, let me clarify. If a good friend says “it’ll be okay” I take it at face value. But I tend to take everything at face value unless I have a good reason not to.<\/p>\n
Thus I expect my friends not to sugar coat things. If someone says to me, “gee Phil, that might not be a great idea” then I interpret that at face value: they think it might<\/i> be a bad idea, but clearly aren’t all that<\/i> concerned. However if someone smacks me across the face and goes “Phil, you’re a dumb motherfucker, you can’t drink a gallon of Tabasco Sauce, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I’m going to go “gee, this person really thinks this a bad idea, I should rethink it.”<\/p>\n
So if I think someone is doing something kind of dumb, I’ll say “that’s kind of dumb.” And if I think someone’s doing something exceptionally brain dead, I’ll tell them they’re a being mind numbingly stupid fuckass.<\/p>\n
I don’t like games. I hate guesswork. I hate codes (cryptography for privacy not withstanding). I hate all that shit. I tell people how I feel and what I think, and I expect the same respect. I think some people get their feeling across with “gee that’s probably a very, very, very, very bad idea” — and while I think that’s still honest and delivers the respect I’m referring to, I also believe it has a significantly reduced effect. Particularly on me and most of the people I’ve met in my life — which is an admittedly small portion of the world’s population.<\/p>\n
Thus We Have The Sledgehammer<\/b><\/p>\n
So, as you can see, I tend to have an approach most people would call the equivalent of a proverbial sledgehammer.<\/p>\n
So when I tell someone how I feel, I tell them exactly how I feel. They’re not kids anymore, so they don’t need sugar coating – most of the time. (Side note: we need to stop babying kids so damn much, it makes whiny fucking adults with low a tolerance for reality.) There are certain times when extra care, tact, and sugar is needed. But I reserve that for extenuating circumstances (like someone’s mom’s died, but they’ve locked themselves in a room for a week. I’m not going to go call them a dumbass… at least not right away). <\/p>\n
This sledgehammer approach comes from all of the philosophies I outline above. It is my honest feeling (4,762), and it’s likely to make the person sit up and listen (1 and 2). That doesn’t mean my opinion is necessarily correct. They don’t have to accept it as fact – but I will do what I can to force them to give it a chance, loop it around the brain a few times, chew on it. Then they can spit it out if they so choose.<\/p>\n
And an example: my friend hates his job. He has for a long time. And I told him to look for a new job. But he was busy. But telling him he was a fucking moron for not looking for a new job because he’s underpaid, under-appreciated, and overworked and that not looking for a new job made him a dumbshit and that deserves his job more and more every day had more of an affect. He probably didn’t like it much. But he started looking for a job (I don’t attribute that entirely to me, but I definitely had a hand in it, which my friend will admit). Sledgehammer.<\/p>\n
A related point that came up in my conversation with my girlfriend, was that perhaps I shouldn’t give people my opinion unless they ask for it. Fuck that. If I consider someone a friend, or want to consider them a friend, they won’t need to ask my opinion to hear it — after all, that’s what friends are for. If they don’t value my opinion, they’re an acquaintance, not a friend. And that’s perfectly okay. And the flip-side, for those wondering, is that any friend of mine can tell me to shut the fuck up at anytime. Because sometimes you just don’t want to hear anyone else’s opinion. And if my friends couldn’t tell me to shut the fuck up, I wouldn’t be their friend, I’d be their acquaintance.<\/p>\n
Final Words<\/b><\/p>\n
So while I wrapped that up with how it relates to my approach to people, that was mostly a formality since that’s how I got the idea for writing down some of my philosophies. The idea of this post is simply to outline the above philosophies. <\/p>\n
So yes, I will gladly piss someone the fuck off if I think it’ll make them think, feel, or realize something they have yet to think, feel, or realize. I will trade a friendship for their life. And I will gladly smack people with a proverbial sledgehammer if I believe it will do any good.<\/p>\n
Lastly, two of my favorite sayings come to mind: “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke” and “Fuck ’em if they can’t handle the truth.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long, but good… enjoy. The Backstory A few days ago I gave someone an unwelcome opinion, with a very small proverbial mallet (those who know me will know this is very unlike me – I usually use a very large sledgehammer, assuming an initial attempt at reason has failed). This caused me to get in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phildev.net\/phil\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}