They removed gullible from the dictionary

I over-analyse stuff. I know, it's a shocking revelation but I thought you all should know :o)

On Friday just gone, I was confronted with a lot of anger and abuse. It was odd to interact with someone with so much rage inside their soul. It seems to be what propels some people through life and another one of those things that I will have to accept but never truly understand.

As with most conundrums, I sat and contemplated what makes a person swing in to irate rage. What happened to them to allow the festering anger and ultimate explosion? What broke them so much that hurting themselves and everyone around them is an option?

To me it comes down to something I was told by this person. That I am gullible.

Now, that's not that far from the truth. I do have a tendency to expect only the best in people and then allow them to prove me wrong, if they must. This has resulted in a happy life filled with amazing individuals who I think I have helped be who they are in some small way by accepting them for who they are. The downside is that when someone a lot more cunning and deceitful than I walks in to the room, I go up and pat the cute little sheep ignoring it's big wolf-like fangs.

With age comes wrinkles and with wrinkles come wisdom. Although my approach is the same and the bad dudes do don their woolly exteriors and stalk me, I now know when to see this is happening and get myself out of that situation before anything bad happens.

There are some things about ourselves that we can not change but we can learn to counter their negative effects, if they occur.

I was luckier than a lot of people. I grew up in a world where I was taught to believe that anything is possible. That if I applied myself and followed my dreams, that they would materialise. This has not been disproven yet. A world where failure was a bump in the road and always a learning experience. Situation gave context but never definition to life.

Imagine the opposite. Imagine growing up in the world where you learn that your lot in life is allocated at birth and that nothing is yours unless it is granted by someone else. Imagine seeing yourself as who you are and not who you could be. Imagine failure confirming your worst impressions of yourself. That is a sad world.

When I see someone who is angry and stuck in a rut. I don't pity them or ridicule them. Instead, I try to understand how it must be to walk a day in their shoes. Their angry, tight, unchanging shoes.