I have a friend who left her husband and two sons and travelled to the other side of the world with another man. Just take a moment and think about what sort of opinion you are forming about this woman. Yes, I call her my friend and these are basic facts from her past. They are accurate and the chances are this is what you would have been told by her husband when she left.
When facts paint the wrong picture
Now let me fill you in on a few more facts about this woman and her relationship. Her ex husband was well over 6ft tall and she is barely reaches 5ft. He is an alcoholic and an addict of other vices too. On her wedding day she walked in on him with another woman, moments before they walked up the aisle. For 8 years she put up with this and his ever increasing violence towards her.
She worked at a travel agents at the time she left him and had an offer from her boss, at the time, to go away with him to work in the UK. She was going to refuse, but her father convinced her to take this opportunity, because he was sure that if she'd stayed her sons wouldn't have a mother and he wouldn't have a daughter for much longer. While he was at the point of killing her, her husband had never harmed their sons, so they wouldn't be in danger, like she was, and her father was sure her husband wouldn't handle raising the boys for long and he would give her custody of them.
It was the hardest thing she ever had to do, leaving her son's behind, and it was a year before she finally got that call to come back and take custody of them.
Image courtesy of @lifeskills-tv
I have an aunt who didn't want children, but her husband did and threatened to leave her if she decided to stick with that decision. So they had one child, a son. Was he neglected and resented by her, because he wasn't wanted? Quite the contrary. My aunt is the most maternal of all my aunts. She looks after everyone. When her teen son's girlfriend got pregnant and had a child with cerebral palsy, she was determined to play a part in his life, even after they spilt up. Her grandson is an adult now, so as she ages she doesn't find caring for him as easy, but still has him over as much as she can, giving his mother some respite.
I sometimes wonder myself if she didn't want children for similar reasons that I didn't want them. Life isn't easy and there are many things I've experienced that I wouldn't wish upon anyone, so why bring a child into this world to inflict that, and possibly worse, upon them. I could never have been a relaxed parent and would always be on hyper alert with them, so I knew it wouldn't be easy to have children.
Painting our own pictures to suit?
Someone once said that you can only have an opinion if you only have one side of an argument. It's probably not entirely accurate, but is likely true for the most part, because once you have the full facts and view points from both sides of an argument, you generally realise that it's not one sided and both sides make valid points. It's why I've always tried never to judge people on what I'm told by someone else. People tend to state facts to justify their own stance and that can range from leaving other facts out, to misquoting what was said to what they might believe was meant and even to outright lying.
Why do people do this? Probably for a range of reasons. Sometimes there isn't the time to go into long conversations and just stating the basic facts in the best way that justify actions and choices seems easiest. Some people feel the need to control people's perceptions of others, because they fear they'll be judged on their actions and choices.
Perhaps the most curious thing for me is why we are quickest to jump to the worst conclusions about people. It's probably the easiest stance to take if you don't know them and you're more likely to want to believe the person you do know. Yet it's this instinct that the more unscrupulous among us take advantage of. Like the girl who doesn't want to believe the man she's dating would hurt her, despite nearly beat his last girlfriend to death and even after being warned about this fact by the police who have been questioning the boyfriend. Did he convince her it was self defence or that the ex-girlfriend deserved it?
I'll leave it with this final thought. Have you ever noticed that it's often the most simple minded among us who assume the best in everyone and are often the quickest to smile and be happy?
I get the point of your post to not judge a book by its cover so to speak, what I don't understand or get is the last couple of lines. Why do we assume that people who assume the best in everyone is simple minded? and to finish the thought out why assume people that smile and are happy are simple minded? I assume the best in people till evidence shows different, this makes me a simple minded person?
What about people that assume the worst in people? What kind of person would that be? opposite of a simple minded person, a person that frowns a lot and is miserable in life?
It's interesting that you took it that way. That wasn't what I was thinking when I wrote it. I'm wondering if the reason we tend to jump towards the worst conclusions is a self preservation instinct. Our 'stranger danger' instincts might make us more inclined to do so. Yet young children and, in my experience, some of the mentally handicapped with what we'd class as younger mental ages, show little fear in approaching strangers, even those who we might see as not very nice people. No matter what has been said about someone, their default is that they are a nice person and they sometimes aren't even fazed when they person isn't nice to them, so continue to be a friend whether they want it or not.
While many often see simple minded people as being under developed in their minds, I often see it more as them having a simpler way of thinking, rather than the overthinking that many of us do. While this may be more obvious in the immature and the mentally handicapped, there are others who have this way of thinking and it seems to serve them well in that they are generally happier people, without all that excessive worrying about whether someone is a terrible person or not and falling into negative thought patterns. A simple mind or simple way of thinking actually seems more a more intelligent approach.
Perhaps another little story about the happiness side of this, which was another thing that promoted me to add that sentence as food for thought. My husband works with an incredibly intelligent man. He has a PhD and was a professor in a British university. However, he struggles to simplify things and over complicates, which can end up with him being unable to solve certain problems and makes him feel like he's the only one who can do everything, because no-one else understands things at his level. This leaves him continually frustrated, stressed and he can tend to lash out at others. Due to this he ends up alienating himself which can make him feel unhappy. He's currently on stress leave.
I guess my thoughts were along the lines of wondering if we might not be better off simplifying our minds. Ironically while once again over thinking on things! 🤣
!ENGAGE 25
This is why brevity is the soul of wit.
Not much wit here then! I was far too long winded!! 🤣
O, were I as concise as are you =)
ENGAGEtokens.I had a whole host of backstories for your opening story and not all of them were what the story ended up being XD one of them involved the woman going off with a male relative or possibly purely platonic friend on a nice holiday as a break while dad stayed home to mind the kids, and branched off into does dad usually mind the kids? Is mum the sole earner? In which case he'd be used to this kind of thing, or if he's not used to taking care of the kids on his own for long periods of time that would have been another fun adventure XD
I've had it much better than a lot of people, and experienced a lot of really cool things so while I can understand people not wanting kids because the world sucks and why would any selfish irresponsible git bring a child into this dumpster fire, but I think the world is an amazing place and why wouldn't anyone who wants to have kids not bring one into the world to see and do all the amazing things you can in it?
I guess I'm simple minded? ^_^;
Keeping it simple is the best! 😆 I wish I could stop myself over complicating things. You can be my guru and show me the path. I get way too negative at times.
I love your back stories. Shows a much wider range of lifestyles are becoming quite normal. They guy she left with did actually end up becoming her husband, although it was completely platonic at the time. I guess he became something of a saviour for her.
!ENGAGE 20
Oh yeh there's also a poly backstory and the spy backstory and I clearly have way too much air in my head.
Your assignment is to write each story down and post them on Hive. 😜
ENGAGEtokens.I find myself wondering if my large frame has coloured my thinking in various ways. I've never had to watch my drink, or worry a partner might turn violent.
It's easy to be proud of giving others the benefit of the doubt when they have such limited capacity to abuse it.
Coloured your thinking or freed your thinking? 🤔 Perhaps when we remove certain vulnerabilities we can take a different outlook. I hadn't thought of that before.
I’m currently smiling as I recall what you said about Dan trying to take you down as children and pretty much bouncing off you! 😆 The size difference between brothers seems quite strange. I'm also thinking, now, of the character Luffy in the anime series One Piece, which Izzy has me watching currently. I don't know if you know it, but he's near on invulnerable and goes into every situation with excitement, a smile and won't take no for an answer when he wants someone to be his friend or companion. He also takes insults as compliments. 😆
I used to watch it after night shift, to unwind before bed. Pokemon, then One Piece. Good fun, but not much plot development between episodes, particularly when you're waiting a full day for the next one.
It's on Netflix now, so we can binge watch a few episodes at a time. Not sure I could cope with it one a day! 🤣 They can get a bit drawn out too... 😩
It was too early to make any conclusion and I ended up reading whole part...that I usually do never hurried on making a decision unless and until I have the full.and complete picture and authenticate the real facts...somthing that I developed over time...and upon certain real circumstances where I was wrong...
That also taught me to.smile...may be sometime upon myself on others....life is funny full of and surprises and loads of teaching....isnt 🙂
To have (re)discovered simplicity after a lifetime of increasing abstraction and complexity feels like a precious gift, especially if one has been able to dispense with being naive and gullible :)
I'm still struggling to find simplicity. Every time I think I have, I get dragged back to complexity as I jump through the government set hoops.
Right, yeah, 'government set hoops' sound like their basic ingredients are confusion and obfuscation. Complexity from covering multi-layered lies.
Perhaps to not imbibe this confusion means not getting tangled up in un-natural complexity. But then it's hard not to get caught up when something 'essential' may be on the line and they have the 'say'.
Another reason for finding that 'Off-Grid' spot, far away from engine of disfunction!
We will get there collectively, regardless of current appearances....Simplicity will, eventually, shake off the burden of useless, unnecessary complexity
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