The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

Softstuff wrote: »

As for the grudges, my imagination is always a bit more amusing. So where I still bear them, it's more in a comedy fashion... like I occasionally imagine that if I was rich, I'd hire someone to move their car 2 rows along in the car park just to confuse them a little. Or I'd pay the restaurant they were dining in to serve them something odd they hadn't ordered (you mean you *didn't* order the beef in fudge sauce madam??). I think it would take more years of therapy than I have time or money for to get more adjusted not to bear a grudge at all, considering the sheer hell they put me through for many years.

I'm guessing you came on the receiving end of bullies at school from your comments?

I don't know how it's worked out for subsequent generations to my own (ie Baby Boomer) - and I can remember a few of these "characters:cool::mad:" from my schooldays. They should not have done it - and I do hope the Universe has appropriate karma lined-up for them.

It's been a big consolation to me when I realised just why those "characters" had been that way. I realised pretty much on the dot of 16. Well - in my generation - all that sort of person left school on the dot of 16 without exception (at least at the school I was at). All my friends and myself without exception stayed on - for one course or another (usually A Levels - back when they were really A levels and a precursor to going to get a "real" University degree iyswim).

That told me a LOT about just why these bullies were being that way - ie they were jealous. They either weren't capable of or weren't being allowed to stay on past 16 - and they had figured out that my friends and I were capable/were going to be allowed. Yep - jealousy then. I mean how stupid was that? - if they'd just had enough self-knowledge to know and acknowledge how they felt one way or the other and complained to me that they werent capable and/or werent being allowed to - I would have genuinely sympathised with them (having discovered that the reason my parents didnt kick me out of school at first possible chance is because that had happened to both my parents - and my father had insisted to my mother that that wasnt going to happen to me).

Duh! Both my parents had been forced out of school at 14 (ie they were the generation born in the 1930s). That was one thing to my mother (as she wouldnt have gone on anyway) - but my father had had teachers round pleading with his parents that he be allowed to have the scholarship he had just won to carry on with his education - and says he accepted it in that generation (as he knew his parents were poor - because they'd had too many children courtesy of pre-Pill/pre-abortion era) ..but was determined that shouldnt happen to anyone else.

Hence the bullies would have had every sympathy from me - if they knew they had decided to carry on schooling, but their parents wouldnt accept it. Even if they werent capable/didnt want to - I would still have been sympathetic.

EDIT; I guess what I'm saying Softstuff is to turn it on its head and regard it as a compliment to you. Yep....a very very odd compliment to say the least. But, at some level, they probably knew you had more "going for you" than they did and what they were doing (probably subconsciously) was trying to pull you down to their level. The compliment implied in this is that you werent at their level in the first place iyswim.

LameWolf wrote: »

I don't go for actual "revenge" but if I hear of the perpetrator getting their come-uppance, I smile to myself and think "Ain't karma a b*tch?" And if someone has done something awful to me, I never, ever trust them again. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" style of thing.

I have seen some very precision-orientated karma during my lifetime.

More than once I've seen someone say "That illness Money is currently experiencing doesnt exist in the first place etc etc and, if it does, it's her illness and not someone else's fault" - ie work-related illness I've experienced in the past (not "my own" illness) iyswim.

It was followed (more than once) by someone that had ridiculed the whole idea that I was ill and/or implied that if I was it was to do with me personally coming down with the same illness and having to "eat humble pie" and come to me for my advice on how to handle it. I admit I would have liked/would still like for them to apologise to me for when they ridiculed me saying "There is an illness here - and it's nothing to do with me personally. An outside factor has created it":(.

I could have turned round and said "Why are you asking for my advice and help now - about an illness you were being insistent didnt exist or, if it did, was down to me personally?". Believe me - I have been SO tempted to say things like that and "tell them where to go":cool:. They would have richly deserved it for sure.

But I took the view of "be the better person - and be helpful" and it is true that not one of them has come back to me and said "You could have told me exactly where to get off - and I would have understood and I thank you that you didnt do so":cool::cool::cool:.

I am still hoping that one of these fine days I might get a bit of acknowledgement and thanks for discounting their previous actions and helping anyway:cool: - but I won't hold my breath 'tis true.:(

It IS hard/very hard to hope that things will "balance out" over time and people won't derive any benefit/will get come-uppance for bad behaviour. Tell me about it - and I still struggle with it.

It is difficult to have someone do summat/say summat they shouldnt to oneself personally (tell me about it....:cool::mad:) and try and think "Calm down - it'll be put on the Karmic Bill". Mygawd - it's blimmin' hard sometimes....

But I am coming to the conclusion these days that is probably the best way to operate overall.

It is certainly becoming clear to me these days just how much most people are a "product of their environment". I've certainly realised I'm very much (and always will be) a product of my own environment (ie 1. a wealthy environment - if not my own family darn it - I wish! 2. a questioning environment) 3. very analytical 4. taking it absolutely for granted that we mean the country as a whole (ie the whole of Britain) when we refer to "the country" and most definitely not one tiny area of the country etc etc.

We are (the vast majority of us) in a "bubble" where what we know/what we think/what we take for granted is The Norm and most of us live in "very small circles" and honestly don't seem to realise that we do! Then one realises that many (Most) other people also seem to exist in a Bubble - and they don't even realise that they aren't "seeing things as they are"....

SWEP - Severe Weather Emergency Protocol.

That's my fact learnt for the day - as I had no idea what those initials meant.

I do hold to most people are products of their environment. The thing is as to whether they know they are or no.

For instance - re religion to take one example. My parents have very different views on that. One is Anglican and one is humanist. With that - the result was that I got sent off to Sunday School when pretty young (presumably to learn the "basics" of our society's dominant religion). Then I was left to it to make up my own mind - as neither of them could/would have pushed their own way (with them both thinking so differently on that front). So I went through all sorts of investigating/thinking for myself - and the end result was a person that is quite firm about how they think things are (and it's a very different way of thinking to most British people) and takes the very liberal view of "Be (or don't be) whatever-the-heck-you-like in that respect. It's down to you". Probably the basis of "thinking for myself" in many respects in fact....

I think that was a pretty correct viewpoint imo - as I am often aware of whether someone is Anglican, Methodist, Evangelical, some other religion altogether or atheist or humanist. Whichever it is = I take the view that's entirely up to them and none of my business and I do think that's down to my "mixed" upbringing in that respect.

A poor background per se isn't going to influence peoples thinking one way or the other basically (other than a consciousness that people may get more or less out of life than they personally merit - after all my fathers comments about how upsetting it was to see people being officers in the Armed Forces over him - when he knew very well he was more capable than them, but they'd come from the "right background"). Other than the way it has caused my father to be very firm that no-one should be held back because they have come from a poor background - and that's a viewpoint I've taken on board personally and I believe people should have whatever they personally are capable of. My fathers intelligence level means he does "question" - and so no-one anywhere is ever going to stop me questioning.

"Long memory"?? I think most of us that were bullied in childhood will have thought about why that happened and hoped the "scales were going to be set right" somewhere along the line. If one doesnt think that = you've become A Victim imo. Most of us don't want to be Victims. We want to work out why things happened/any way they could have been prevented/how to ensure they dont happen in the future/how to protect other people from the same treatment. I think that's reasonable.

After some "chip on shoulder" treatment I've had from a couple of others recently - I'm all lined-up ready to stand up for anyone else that looks to be on the receiving end of that. So, when I've spotted it going on - I've turned round and spoken up to defend the person who was being "chipped at".

I don't think it came over clearly - but it's not "found wanting" about things going on - but comparison with what one knows and then working out what one is used to/thought was the norm and then figuring out how well it suits one (or otherwise) personally and how fair (or otherwise) one thinks it is generally.