Scratch My Back

Remember the good ole days of ‘I Scratch Your Back, You Scratch Mine’?  Today it’s more like ‘I Scratch Your Back, You Stab Mine’.  Seriously, what is up with everyone?!

Has the scare of the economy have all us fighting and being more competitive?  Have reality shows glamorized the payoffs of being single minded?  Someone help me understand.

Remember when you helped a friend move.  You got up early on a Saturday morning, dragged yourself out of bed, and put on your moving clothes just to help ‘a friend‘ in need.  A friend that you’ve known for years and went through thick and thin.  A friend that you supported at work or school.  A friend you bought cookies for fund raising events.  A friend that you helped out of a jam.  A friend whose family you’ve supported in one way or another.  A friend that you thought would return the favor someday.  Remember those days?  I surely do and unfortunately, they don’t.

This tells me a few things.

1.  The people I thought were friends aren’t

2.  The family members I thought were genuinely concerned aren’t

3.  That I shouldn’t expect anything from anyone regardless of the favors I do for them or regardless of our relationship or past experience together

4.  Cherish your friends and family who have the best intentions for you and for all.

There was a time in my life when I would do things unconditionally and without complaint.  A smile and a handshake was all it took.  But now as I’m older with a few more life lessons under my belt, it isn’t so easy to help mankind without some sort of expectation in return.

I’m all of a sudden in that ‘what’s in it for me?’ mentality.  I help you, you help me is how it’s gonna be from now on lol.

See the rest of our Nispiros Portal Lessons.

Venting

Is it wrong to expect certain things from certain people?  For example, you expect the President of the United States, whoever that might be in any given year, to manage the country, protect us from harm, and look out for our well being (at least you hope).  Pretty straightforward right?

To me, I expect certain behaviors from people in certain roles.  I expect a mother to be motherly and always caring.  I expected a father to be protective of his family.  I expect a manager to train me and set me up for success at work.  Not so hard right?  This would be ideal in a perfect world.

If I take this up a notch, then I expect people in general to be honest, respectful, considerate, and compassionate at least up front.  However, it seems to me that people are not this way anymore.  If they are, then we must be living in a bubble.  People are caught up in their own lives and just don’t seem to care, at least not like when I was younger.

I remember the days when friends had get togethers and neighbor’s doors were wide open.  You could come over anytime and we could just kick back and talk our heads off.  Even my parents generation had friends like this.  They’d have house parties at a moment’s notice.

Now-a-days, you’ve got to coordinate schedules.  You’ve got to call in advance.  Doors are locked and alarms are set.  Gone are the days of ‘my house is your house’ mentality.  At least for the most part it is.  There are very few people who still value hospitality.

Unfortunately for me, I still have this mentality that friends and family are automatically hospitable just out of association.  I’m sure they are hospitable, assuming they can fit you in their schedule or their kid’s schedule.  Once are family is started I will probably run into the situation.  I surely hope not.

Sadly, I rarely know my neighbors.  Two of the surrounding neighbors are renters.   One of them looks questionable.  His roommates even look familiar, like a post office picture familiar, like Megan’s Law familiar.

There has been so much crime and violence that people are less trusting.  I don’t blame them.

When people do something out of the ordinary, they surprise the hell out of me.  Maybe I just need to lower my expectations of people.  I just don’t get how people can be so busy that they can’t even give you the time of day.  I mean, if we invite someone to our home, then we consider them friends.  It would be great to have the same invitation to build that relationship.  But it’s just not that way anymore.  It’s disappointing and when you get treated the same way from family, then it becomes annoying.

Do you know what’s also annoying?  People who don’t listen when you talk.  People who are half listening and thinking about how to top your story.  People who constantly talk about themselves.  I could say, ‘my work place burned down’ and the person would say, ‘oh that’s great.  Anyway, I just went skiing yesterday and we saw a burnt house on the way up to the slopes’.  WTH!

Is it bad to expect that people should listen to you and actually provide a response that is more closely to what you expect?  Maybe show some concern? Such as, ‘wow, was everyone alright?  were you at work when this happened?’.  To me, that would be the ‘normal’ response.

I guess that we are in a busy world, we’ve got places to go, people to meet, and less time to do everything.  I surely don’t have an answer.  Just venting today . . .