Do you ever wish you had a different personality? I do. I genuinely wish I was the type of person who didn't feel it was morally wrong to stand by and watch people bully, lie, gaslight and generally abuse whatever position of minor power they may have. I am comfortably off and I am at a stage in my life where I could do without the hassle. Sadly for me, I was raised to believe that God had blessed me with many gifts in life and that it was my duty to show my appreciation for this by not taking the easy path and saying "it's someone else's problem" when I see people behaving in an appalling manner. It is bad enough to see people behave in an appalling manner, but when I then see them being dishonest to try and get away with it, it gets my goat. Much as I would love to walk on by, I can't. I am sure that one day it will be the death of me. However, I've had the best life and I would rather go to my grave early with my dignity and self respect than let people act in a way that is horrible. I've never been afraid to go out on a limb, shout back at a howling mob, if they are wrong.
Life is short and at some point, I believe we all have a reckoning. I am not perfect, I've made terrible mistakes in the past and I will again. I've let people down, I've looked the other way at times when I shouldn't. What life has taught me is that when you do this, the shame is a heavy burden. There are several stories in the news today that have demonstrated a terrible cost associated with not doing the right thing.
I have learned that life is a bit like a game of chess. Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to get what you need to succeed. But you have to have a clear strategy. I am so often shocked at the fact that people who take a different path so rarely have thought through the consequences of their actions, beyond what they can see at the end of their nose. When you don't treat people with dignity, when you demonise them for their mistakes, when you want remedies that are disproportionate, you enter a very dangerous place.
I apply three principles to life. The first is that we all make mistakes, so mistakes should be treated with understanding, if the person who made them acknowledges them. Secondly, If you make a mistake, you should do everything in your power to rectify it as soon as you recognise it. If you don't then you have not learned and no one should have any faith that you will not make a similar mistake again. The third principle and one that is perhaps hardest for us to get our heads around is that we are not being true friends if we don't tell our friends the truth and put them right when they have behaved badly. We have to balance that against ensuring that they know we will help them get through difficult times, but when we know they are in the wrong, we should support their efforts to put things right, not reinforce and mistaken belief they may have that if they tell enough lies, they might get away with it. As friends, when we support atrocious behaviour, we become co-conspirators and culpable.
My memory always brings me back to a certain Barnet Tory councillor, who continually behaved in the most atrocious manner. His party chums went along with his appalling behaviour, although several privately told me they were appalled. Instead of learning from past misdemeanours, his behaviour deteriorated, until the point where he assaulted a woman on the High Street and ended up with a criminal record. When the CCTV showed the assault, he exclaimed "That is not how I remember it".
I realised that he convinced himself that an alternative reality was true and despite hard evidence to the contrary, many of his local Tory chums fell into line behind him. For some reason, weak, pathetic bullies generally prefer picking on women, unless they have a baying mob supporting them.
Over the years, I have seen so many examples, in work, in local politics, in social settings and clubs that I belong to, where unpleasant individuals pick on people they believe are not in a position to fight back. In every case there is one constant. They refuse to admit they are wrong and have extreme reluctance to apologise to those they have wronged. I am 64 soon and I am thoroughly sick of such people. Their unpleasantness is so deeply engrained that they see it as not only perfectly normal, but they genuinely enjoy the upset that they cause their victims. The one thing you never hear from them is that they have any sense of regret for the upset that they caused their victims, unless it is part of a strategy to get themselves off the hook.
If I wasn't in a great band and surrounded by nice people, I think I would find it very hard to navigate waters inhabited by such individuals. As it is I seem them for what they are and it reminds me why I never want to be in their camp. But I will leave you with this thought. It is not the man who pulls the trigger who is the most dangerous individual. It is the man who hid the gun for him, so he got away and did it again. It took me a while to understand.
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