HURT PEOPLE, HURT PEOPLE!

There was this one time when I was a little kid, I went swimming with my brother and my cousins. We were at Tibetts Brook Park in Yonkers NY. My brother and cousins were all older and bigger and taller than me so they wanted to go into the deep end but I was too short. So we got in the pool and they kept walking and walking into the deep end, and I'm trying my best to keep up with them eventually my feet were no longer touching the ground and I couldn't swim. I immediately started going under panicking. I was flapping my arms and kicking my legs all frantically. I'm flapping my arms and legs and I'm coming up above water for fractions of a second at a time. But every time I would come up above water to take a breath I would gulp down mouthfuls of pool water. This was the end for me I thought, Its over. I remember being scared to death. But, I remember vividly the pool was jam packed with people (Which is probably why no lifeguard or no one else even noticed me drowning). But, in a desperate act to save myself, I saw other people swimming around me so I pushed down on them and pushed their heads down just to push myself up. I would pull down on other peoples bathing suits in order to pull myself up so that I could survive. I wasn't doing it because I wanted anyone else to drown. I wasn't intentionally trying to hurt anyone else. Its just that I was drowning. I was going down I was scared and panicked and the only way that I could think of to save myself, the only way that I could think of pull myself up would be by pushing or pulling others around me down. The people who I had to push or pull down weren't targeted victims. It wasn't personal at all.  They just happened to be the ones near me at the time.

Remembering this incident proved to be a great lesson in my older years. It taught me how to deal with people. I have learned that angry, nasty, mean, bitter, condescending people who try to push or pull others down or degrade or demean others, is usually because they are so hurt, lost and scared and so unhappy or sad or self conscience or insecure and depressed by their own lives. Because they are down and drowning in their own misery, just like the scared little kid I was when I was drowning, they feel like the only way for them to survive and live is by trying to push or pull others around them down.  I would venture to say that the overwhelming majority of times, just like those people I had to push or pull down in the pool, Its not personal, you are not an intended victim. They are drowning and you just happen to be closest to them at the time. They don't mean any harm. Its just that RUDENESS, ANGER, BITTERNESS, CONDESCENSION IS A WEAK MANS IMITATION OF STRENGTH!

I've learned that people who are unhappy with themselves and their own lives often try to even the score by trying to make other people as miserable and unhappy as they are. Those who are unhappy with the progress and status of their own lives will try to belittle the progress and the status of others. Those who have no dreams or goals or plans for their lives will try to destroy and belittle the dreams, goals and plans of others.

I've learned that when you allow negative, mean, condescending, disrespectful, bitter, nasty people to change your mood or to drag you into their misery, than THEY HAVE WON. I have learned that when you are nasty, rude, mean, condescending back to those people THAN YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT THAN THEM!      

So the next time you encounter a negative, mean, condescending, disrespectful, bitter, nasty person at your school or your job or in the supermarket or at the DMV or in a restaurant etc. DON'T GIVE YOUR POWER AWAY! DON'T LET THEM CONTROL YOUR MOOD OR YOUR DAY! DON'T LET THEM WIN!

REMAIN POSITIVE, FAITHFUL, HOPEFUL, PEACEFUL OPTIMISTIC! SPREAD LOVE, KEEP DREAMING, KEEP WORKING, KEEP PURSUING YOUR GOALS AND YOUR DREAMS AND KEEP ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!

after all....

"THE BEST REVENGE IS MASSIVE SUCCESS!"
-Frank Sinatra

THE WORLD IS YOURS! WELL, UNLESS YOU GIVE IT AWAY OF COURSE!

ITS OUR TIME!

PEACE!