There are plenty of moments in my life that I remember vividly, and will for the rest of my life, and I know that if that moment had gone differently, my life could have have been differet. At the 7th grade class spelling bee, I was confronted with a word pronounced by my English teacher at the time, Ms. Vaci, who pronounced a word that I wasn't that familiar with: either "windsome" or "winsome." Every other part of the word was obvious except that transition from the first syllable to the second syllable, and I couldn't tell if she was adding the "ds" sound or not, and I couldn't eliminate either of those words based on the definition. So I spelled "windsome," and I was wrong, a fitting word to lose a comeptition in. That was the the definitive end to my spelling bee career......no county spelling bee, no state spelling bee, no national spelling. I don't even remember if we had an 8th grade spelling bee, if we did I might have been so traumatized from that the 7th grade one I just blocked it out of my memory.
The spellig bee is just an example of losing out in a situation due to not being sufficiently assertive. I could have asked Ms. Vaci to repeat the word over and over until I heard it right. I could have told her simply, "I can't tell if you're saying windsome or winsome." But instead of putting her on the spot, my 7th-grade self didn't want to inconvenience her and slow down the whole class, so I just guessed. I've always kind of been that way, wanting more to please others or at least not to inconvenience others. Don't get me wrong, I can be selfish and am not trying to suggest I'm a better person because of this character flaw, it's just an instinct I have to put other people's interests in mind even if it runs counter to my own.
In today's society, most people operate in the opposite way: don't worry about others' interests at all, only take care of yourself. That's one extreme on the spectrum, and my passive approach is on the other. Somewhere in between is likely the right balance.
Even when it comes to hosting parties and organizing events, I think too much about pleasing people and giving others what they want, to the point of not even putting on an event because I don't know if other people will show up/ will like it. I know plenty of people who set up their weddings at faraway locations that are way out of the way for all the guests (like a destination wedding in China) or mark "You will need a car" on their wedding invitations, even for guests arriving from the other side of the country, who would then have to get on a flight, get a rental car, find accomodations in the remote location, and drive themselves to that event (and worry about the alcohol consumption). Some might defend that as "oh well that will cut down the guest list!" and it very much may, but what's the whole point of a wedding then, if you're trying to disincentive guests to come?
Also, defensive driving: it's served me well to think about "what other people want" when in condensed city streets or busy highways, because I'm aware that someone might want to change lanes, or someone behind me might want to get around me to turn right, or any number of unexpected occurrences on the road. All that honking, though, in the East coast, shows that few drivers reciprocate my feelings, choosing to honk (and honk continuously, in a very vindictive way) whenever they don't get what their way, and often stopping in the middle of a 2-lane busy city street for some sort of "emergency" as they put their hazard lights on, only to find that they stopped just to wait for the pizza to be delivered to them, some other non-emergency personal errand. It's actually one of the frustrating realities that makes me veer towards MJ's stated view of the world (when she gets pessimistic about humanity), which is that, "We're all doomed!" It sometimes sure seems that way, right, when able-bodied guys will wave a cup when cars are stopped to ask for money while hospitals just can't find enough nurses and assistants to fill the spots needed (always shortstaffed), the discourse in the country and really the world is very divisive and people seem to be angry all the time, people consuming greedily on fast food, using up resources and being entitled to it since it's their own body, but then winding up in the hospital with all sorts of issues expecting others to fix that same body that they've destroyed themselves. (This applies to Covid and other diseases as well).
I do realize that the thing with irresponsible people is they make everyone else look bad, but they are only the outliers of society, and there's plenty of good in the world that doesn't get noticed as often (good acts are often not rewarded). But because of all the outsize attention we're giving to those behaving badly due to social media, etc. ( I saw a "cheating on your boyfriend loyalty test" video that is just so wrong on so many levels of the cheating itself, but also that videos espousing entrapment of one spouse to cheat on others, or these videos are scripted and it's fake but in that sense we're rewarding the broadcast of inauthenticity) that the good will drift over to being bad......and then we just have a society of irresponsibility. It's a really depressing feeling that's difficult to shake, and difficult to remedy on an individual level.
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