Honestly something that bothers me more than most things is having my compassion mistaken for naivety.
I know that another fish might eat this bullfrog right after I spend months rehabilitating it.
I know that turning a beetle back onto its legs won’t save it from falling over again when I walk away.
I know that there is no cosmic reward waiting for my soul based on how many worms I pick off a hot sidewalk to put into the mud, or how many times I’ve helped a a raccoon climb out of a too-deep trashcan.
I know things suffer, and things struggle, and things die uselessly all day long. I’m young and idealistic, but I’m not literally a child. I would never judge another person for walking by an injured bird, for ignoring a worm, or for not really caring about the fate of a frog in a pond full of, y’know, plenty of other frogs.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But I cannot cannot cannot look at something struggling and ignore it if I may have the power to help.
There is so much bad stuff in this world so far beyond my control, that I take comfort in the smallest, most thankless tasks. It’s a relief to say “I can help you in this moment,” even though they don’t understand.
I don’t need a devil’s advocate to tell me another fish probably ate that frog when I let it go, or that the raccoon probably ended up trapped in another dumpster the next night.
I know!!!! I know!!!!!!! But today I had the power to help! So I did! And it made me happy!
So just leave me alone alright thank u!!!!
THIS.
I heard a story about this, a parable I guess.
There was a big storm and a ton of starfish were washed onto the beach, stranded much further up than they could get back and beginning to bake in the post-storm sunshine. A little girl was walking down the beach, picking up starfish and throwing them back into the sea. Some guy comes up and asks her what she’s doing. “Saving the starfish,” she says.
He looks around at the huge beach and the hundreds of starfish, and says “You can’t possibly save them all. I’m afraid you’re not gonna make much of a difference.”
She throws another starfish back into the ocean, and replies “It made a difference to that one.”
Yeah, I mean, we know we can’t change all the things. But have you ever noticed how much better life is when you’re around people who change things when they can?
Kindness is a choice. Even if it’s small, it’s worth it.
This is what I’m talking about, when I say that kindness and compassion do not equate with ignorance, stupidity, or naivety. Being cynical does not make someone more intelligent or more worldly.
Kindness is not weakness.
Kindness is brave. Especially when you also know that your kindness might not be returned, may even be met with anger or cruelty. It’s reaching out with an open hand, knowing that it’s just as likely to be bitten as it is to be held.
Kindness is hard. If you can’t find it in yourself to be kind, then fine. But don’t make it more difficult for those that can.
Kindness is a discipline, a skill like anything else. Don’t think you can simply be nice the odd time and call yourself kind. Kind takes work, ethic, perseverance. It must be pursued even in the darkest of times. Mercy is for those who deserve it the least and vows are for the times when it is most difficult to withstand.
If you aren’t pursuing it every day, then you’re not kind. You’re occasionally nice.
Today I walk into work and there are a ton of people in my building and it’s kind of a mess and everyone is talking and I sort of just blurt out:
“Man, it’s a zoo in here!”
Everyone stopped and looked at me as though I had 2 heads.
Then I realized.
I work at a zoo.
Update: my boss was talking about how he was really excited for an entire week of vacation and was wondering what he should do, so I looked him dead in the eye and told him, with a straight face,
“You should visit the local Zoo, I heard it’s really nice.”
Under pain of death I am no longer allowed to make any zoo related jokes.
Part three: I was cleaning the squirrel monkeys and one of them kept trying to climb up me so I sort of just yelled
“WILL YOU STOP MONKEYING AROUND??”
I forgot my boss was in the next room and he walked and just glared at me
Another update:
I was in the reptile house and one of the new interns looked like they needed some help grabbing a snake so I just blurted out:
“Let me slither on over there and help”
They actually appreciated the pun XD
So I’m in the kangaroo yard and my boss says “they need more water, hop to it.” And I kind of look at him not sure if he said that on purpose but he looks back with such horror and just whispers “I hope you’re happy” and walks away.
i swear to god, men raising their voice is the most terrifying thing in the whole world. they dont understand, like its an immediate panic response, game over
I actually had no idea women found this so scary
my downstairs neighbors fight on a regular basis, and every time he starts yelling i’m a little afraid he’s going to kill her. i have no reason to think this except that he is a man and he is angry
My math teacher has a loud voice and a temper and he scares the living shit out of me almost everyday. He’s made me and other kids cry more than once and he and his teacher buddies make a joke out of terrifying students.
this was women in general? i knew my gf didn’t like it but I was unaware if this affected most women
Yes, it does
As a woman, I had no idea it effected other women like this. I was too afraid to even talk about it. I thought I was weak. Thanks for bringing attention to this.
My dad thinks it’s funny that I used to cry when he raised his voice. I freak out whenever some one does. Once my director did, and I started crying I couldn’t stop. I’m glad to see I’m not alone…
This is so important– seeing how common this is– and I also want you all to know that this is not normal. It isn’t something instinctively ingrained into women, to be afraid of men. There is no natural state of men being a threat that women constantly have to be afraid of. This is cultural. So many women and girls here have a mutual understanding of this feeling, and I think it really shows an unsettling truth about our society, particularly about how men are raised to act and how so many women have this defensive reaction gradually develop. It’s so important that these people have their voices heard, because it teaches us about problems that we just can’t deny the existence of any longer.
I’m glad I’m not the only one
My fellow men, pay attention. I didn’t realize how scary this could be until one of my exes explained it to me, and it’s heartbreaking.
Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)
Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.
I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.
I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.
Don’t tell me it’s too hard, that you just can’t do it, or that you “shouldn’t have to.” I’m 53 years old and just now getting the hang of it, and if this old dog can learn something new, so can you.
I am a little high but what if people proposed with beautiful, intricate knives. Ladies would gather around the table and be like “guess what finally happened!!” And pull this beautiful, intricate dagger out of her purse and all the other ladies would gasp and congratulate her
Me: I’m a little high but –
Y’all rushing to that reblog button:
It’s an awesome idea tho
Wedding Rings: Tired, ordinary, no practical use
Wedding Knives: Stylish, fashionable, useful in everyday life
if someone does the “fine, you’re right, i’m clearly a terrible person, i’m satan, i’m the worst person alive, i should just die” thing in response to criticism of their harmful behavior, they are trying to manipulate ppl and flip the situation around so that they look like a victim
stop tolerating this in 2k17 tbh. like really and truly, if you or your friend thinks this is okay pls call the hotline on the bottom of the screen and learn how to take responsibility for your bad behavior
The bad thing is I do this on a regular basis. Not because I want to manipulate people, but because that’s actually how I feel. I’m bad at receiving concrit. I can’t say that everyone who reacts this way feels the same as I do, but…not every case is like that.
have you considered that, regardless of your intentions, reacting in such an exaggerated way would make it very difficult for anyone to criticize you or tell you that you’re harming people with your behavior? i’m not interested in searching out people’s motives, i don’t really care why someone does or says manipulative things. being unable or unwilling to simply apologize and not make it about themselves is a solid indicator that a person is not interested in being held accountable for their bad behavior, and people, especially the injured parties in question, shouldn’t have to tolerate it.
take responsibility for your bad behavior 2k17 tbh
Okay, life lesson time.
When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I kept getting involved with people who would say, “Oh, I’m a bad person” any time I brought up ANYTHING that was the least bit of a disagreement.
Like, “Please don’t leave my X on the floor” would get, “Oh, I’m a horrible person!”
HERE’S WHY THIS IS A HUGELY PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIOR, and if you think I”m calling you out and you think you’re about to shut down, take a breath, remember that this is about learning, and keep reading.
What is important is what happened after. My boyfriend might say, “Oh, I’m just an awful boyfriend” and instead of him acknowledging the BEHAVIOR and working on fixing it, he’d get me trying to buck him up for the next half hour, telling him he was a good person. The behavior that started it all would not change.
Well, things led to things and I went back home to live for a while, and found that the same exact thing was happening… with my mother.
And then I learned about pattern arguments. Pattern arguments are the ones where you keep having the same nonproductive argument over and over again. They don’t all follow this pattern, but this is a really common one.
The trick?
BREAK THE PATTERN
First you have to know what the pattern is. In this case: 1. Grievance 2. Self deprecation 3. Ego stroking
So, with my mother, we started in on one of these, and she said, “I guess I’m just a terrible mother.”
And instead of reassuring her, instead of derailing the issue and letting it go… I said, “When you say that, it makes me wonder how terrible a daughter I could be that you would think you were a bad mother. We have this conversation this way over and over, and the problem that I have always gets pushed aside in favor of trying to make you feel better. When you’re willing to have a real conversation about this, I’m happy to talk to you, but I’m bored with this argument, so I’ll see you later if you want to really talk.” And I left the room.
Now, my mom is a reasonably self-aware person, and does a lot of hard emotional work, and so she got it, very quickly. 10 minutes later she came out and found me, and we had a real conversation about whatever the hell the issue really was, and we have literally NEVER had that particular pattern argument again in 23 years.
Boyfriend came to visit. I was upset about something, he started in on the “I’m just a shitty boyfriend” thing… and my response?
“Yep. You are.”
His jaw dropped. He blinked.
And I said, “Look, that’s what you do. You say shit like that and it means you don’t have to change your behavior, and I’m tired of the pattern we have where I tell you something isn’t working for me, you tell me you’re terrible, and I spend half an hour making you feel better. I’m tired of it and I”m not doing it anymore. If you’re willing to have an actual conversation about this, and not just the same old argument, I’m game. But this thing we do where you talk yourself down and I butter you up? Is boring. And I’m over it.”
We also did not have that argument again. (The relationship finally ended for real a while after, but it ended in a grown-up way, and not with a ridiculous meaningless fight.)
When you knock yourself down, the gut instinct for the people around you is to pick you up. But that means you’re not pulling your weight in the relationship. You’re making them do the work and you’re not actually hearing them.
So that brings us to another point:
How to deal with criticism
Okay, so if you’re not going to knock yourself down when someone says something negative about you, what DO you do? We don’t actually train people to take criticism well. But it is an art and a skill and NECESSARY to finding emotional stability in the face of a critical world.
I see it as a flow chart, but since the flow chart I made for it ended up in a book that I don’t own the copyright to (not a big deal) I’ll write out the decision tree here instead:
1. Someone offers criticism (constructive or not!)
2. Listen and think about it without immediately trying to defend yourself. You can say, “Okay, I need a moment to take that in and think about it because I want to understand it.” Or something else appropriate to the situation. It is okay to ask for time to think in most circumstances. Most people will appreciate that you are thinking about their words instead of immediately getting defensive or counterattacking. Think about whether what they are saying is valid, might be valid or is not valid.
3A. If it is valid, then you have a choice. You can try to fix the behavior or you can acknowledge that it is a valid criticism but decide you aren’t likely to fix it. Start by acknowledging the validity of the criticism, and then say what you’re going to do to fix it, or say that it’s valid but it isn’t something you’re willing (or possibly able) to change, or say that it’s a valid criticism and you’ll need to think about possible solutions. They may have a suggestion. Taking it or not is also a choice.
3B. If you’re not sure it’s valid, but it might be, tell them, “I really need to give this some more thought.” or “Can you tell me more about this? I’m not sure I understand the issue well.” Or “If you can point me at some reading material or search terms, I’d like to study this before I decide what I’m going to do.”
3C. If you know it is not a valid criticism, STOP a moment, and look at WHY they are making it. This is where Active Listening can be very helpful. “I hear you saying that X is a problem. I don’t see it that way right now but I’d like to understand better why you do.” Or if you think they don’t have enough information, “I hear you saying X, but my understanding of the issue is Y. Here’s what I know about it if you’re ready to listen.” If they’re just looking for a fight, tell them you’re not interested in fighting, and disentangle yourself.
4. If the criticism is something you are going to listen to and take action on, tell them what kind of action you’re going to take. If it’s something you’re hearing and thinking about, tell them that. If it’s not something you’re going to do anything about or it’s just wrong, thank them for their input and move on.
Literally never is it going to be helpful to say, “Oh, I’m just a terrible person.” That’s very much like a nonapology-apology in terms of how unhelpful it is to any conversation. It’s kind of worse because it actually expects emotional labor from someone who is already having to bring up something unpleasant with you.
Think about what they say Decide whether you’re going to do something about it Do the thing, or tell them you’re not going to do the thing. Don’t demand emotional labor from other people when you were the one who messed up.
Apologize if appropriate.
This is all predicated on the notion that you’re talking to someone who actually wants to communicate and isn’t just an asshole on the attack.
Because seriously, the whole “I’m a terrible person” thing?
Boring as fuck. Knock that shit off. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. But take responsibility and have a little self-respect and don’t make others pick your emotional dirty towels off the metaphorical bathroom floor.
Yeah, I want to reiterate all of the above, because I feel like the top post doesn’t do an especially good job of conveying that mostly when people do this its not on purpose, its generally because they’re feeling real distress.
Its just that it doesn’t matter.
If every single criticism of you ends in an emotional crisis, you become uncriticisable, and its unbelievably difficult to deal with someone when you can ask them to stop doing something, or to fix something.
9 times out of 10 when someone asks you to stop doing something, or fix a behaviour, its not that big a deal, they were a little upset, they said something about it, and a quick apology and not doing it again, or even just making a sincere effort to do it less, and they’ll probably not even think about it again.
And yeah, it can feel really, really bad to realize you’ve upset someone, even if its only a little bit. But it is unbelievably difficult to maintain a relationship with someone who makes all their feelings your problem. Not because it means you’re evil, or abusive, or being deliberately manipulative, but because most people just don’t have enough emotional energy to process for two. They just don’t.
This would have been amazing to have when I was 16 and an arsehole, but thank God for the people who helped me break that behaviour.
This. I figured it out on my own at some point that, due to my low self-esteem, I was doing this internally. I wouldn’t say it out loud and so it wasn’t manipulative, but it still wasn’t helpful at all. Neither was my original method of “oh look at the ways I’ll be amazing and better to make it for it” that never actually got done. But forcing myself to stop, listen, breathe, and assimilate the information, without getting emotional or upset or focusing on my feelings too much, has seriously helped me analyze myself and my behavior so much more.
If you think the criticism is valid, another thing that could be good to say would be “You’re right, leaving it on the floor means it’s in the way and will get dirty/will be more likely to get broken” or whatever. This shows the other person that you are working hard to see how things are for them, in contrast to “I am a terrible person” which has no room for their needs or concerns.
story concept of the day: a “medical mystery of the week” serial set in a world with monsters and superpowers and mutants and aliens
It would be like. One part comedy, one part drama, two parts world-building. The hospital has an aquatic wing for mermaids and sea monsters. How do you treat someone who has telepathic influenza? We’ll figure it out, I guess!
Some storyline concepts:
—a woman from a telepathic race based on anglerfish shows up in the ER in a panic because her mate, who is tiny and permanently attached to her body, has stopped communicating through their telepathic link
—the air-breathing doctors have to take over the aquatic ward after a mysterious illness spreads through the water-breathing staff
—an ambulance brings in an unconscious alien from a species totally outside of medical literature, the staff scramble to save their life while flying blind
—the first outbreak of lycanthropy in 50 years occurs following protests against the vaccine, the hospital is quarantined while the on-staff pharmacists try to control the situation
If I write this, I’d want it to be like. Scrubs meets WTNV.
Character concept: a demon who works in the ER because their ability to “steal” souls means they can bring back patients who are medically dead but still repairable if you can just get them breathing again.
He has some insanely generic sounding name like Doctor Fred and has that “snake tongue, fangs, ram horns, red skin, yellow eyes, long tail, black bat wings” thing going on
He’s like 35 and the object of unrepentant longing from most of the interns and junior staff. He’s kind and patient and great with kids and has the cutest hiccupy laugh and is absolutely the guy you want overseeing your training because he never yells. Everyone wants to marry Doctor Fred.
It’s a running joke that he’s probably a literal Incubus but there’s no aura or magic at play, he’s just got a perfect personality.
I think I’m naming this story “doctors and demons” for now
Another character is just. Nessie. The Loch Ness monster is here. She works at the front desk for the aquatic ward and pokes her head out of the water to pass notes and files to the other doctors.
One of the aquatic doctors is Doctor Lagoon, who is the creature from the black lagoon. He’s very intimidating but can be immediately be calmed down by bringing up his human wife or their daughter. There’s a picture of him holding his wife bridal style on his desk.
The actual protagonist is a human woman who considers herself totally normal but actually has SOME sort of powerful telekinesis that she constantly explains away as coincidence.
There’s a character named Cadaver or Caddie who is a living corpse that constantly regenerates. She’s vital to the hospital for organ transplants but an absolute nightmare for the staff because she does things like host speed dating for zombies in the morgue and eat everyone lunch out of the staff room fridge.
Also I think the protagonist’s name is Jane Doe or Doctor Doe, as a joke on her being average but… not at all.
I think the trio of main characters are Doctor Fred (emergency), Doctor Doe (in-patient) and an alien surgeon named Doctor Hive, who is close to an insectoid Cthulhu. A running joke is her ability to keep track of her hundreds of children but not the names of any of their fathers or her coworkers except her very favorites.
if you didn’t believe that England hates Donald Trump already: the most recent news of his visit today is that the mayor of London approved protestors releasing a £16,000 Trump in-a-diaper balloon to fly 98ft above ground when he visits, and literally no British person is surprised. Welcome to London.
I’m literally not kidding
the people who are managing the balloon are called trump babysitters. I’ve never loved my country more.
i fucking love this country. Trust us to make the president feel welcome
the best part about this is that trump expected to have a royally welcome visit but as soon as he made an appearance, thousands of angry British people started chanting “fuck trump!” on repreat for hours.
UPDATE: Trump has managed to generate a bigger crowd than Obama did, but for all the wrong reasons. The entirety of London is filled with angry anti-trump protestors, to the point where he is refusing to make an appearance due to fear for his safety.
Here are some fucking awesome protest signs being shown today. I hope we’ve made you proud!
How much would it cost to bring the Giant Baby to The States?
Or to make a few of our own?
Okay I know I just reblogged this earlier. but I just realized that thw “all in all you’re just another prick with no wall” sign is being held by Tony Robinson, known to many as Baldric from Black Adder, and a huge portion of my childhood from Saturday morning cartoons.
Supurblychaoticdragon 