Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: In a perfect world winter does not exist
3,657 posts, read 2,937,139 times
Reputation: 6739
Advertisements
I have just turned 54 and realize the biggest gift you can give to most everyone is to " leave them alone".
One action by you can cause a chain of events that often can be unfavorable or life changing. I have had this happen to me and I am sure I did the same.
I can't sum it up too well but if you watch the movie Babel starring Brad Pitt you will see the cause and effects of one's action on multiple lives.
I tread very carefully out there and just be as vanilla as I can.
I agree about leaving people alone, but when I make that decision, it is because the other person has explicitly told me to leave them alone. Or if it is communicated by body language or tone, I will say something like "based on your actions/tone, it seems like you want me to leave you alone. Am I correct?"
I know several relatives, older ones, who will say they want to be left alone, but then be upset because they were left alone. I would rather they be upset because I held them accountable through their words or because they didn't like the direct questions. This will allow us to start at a place where the facts are known and allow me to fall back on it when the other person starts drifting away from that point.
Then end result is that words have meaning. To say, "oh, that person just wants to be left alone" without that person being explicit about it is just a mind reading game.
I have just turned 54 and realize the biggest gift you can give to most everyone is to " leave them alone".
One action by you can cause a chain of events that often can be unfavorable or life changing. I have had this happen to me and I am sure I did the same.
I can't sum it up too well but if you watch the movie Babel starring Brad Pitt you will see the cause and effects of one's action on multiple lives.
I tread very carefully out there and just be as vanilla as I can.
I have not seen that movie -- I will check it out -- but I have often thought about how the least little action can have major consequences. For example, giving a cashier a smile and a compliment versus being grumpy and snapping at her. Or it can be something much more that that, such as one time I felt a small tug on my lower leg when standing in a swimming pool in feet of water at a water park pool and instead of shrugging it off, I reached down and pulled a little boy about two years old out of the water. I often wondered it I had not done that, if he might have drowned -- and what the ramifications of my actions might have been. (Probably nothing much, but I still wonder.) It was like George Bailey saving Harry in "It's a Wonderful Life" -- only what if Harry had turned out to be a mass murderer instead of a hero?)
As far as leaving someone alone, I do agree that people should not give any unsolicited advice or trying to change them in any way "for their own good"? The last part is my pet peeve and I still have resentment to a very domineering relative when I was young that continued until I was 40 and she finally died.
I tread very carefully out there and just be as vanilla as I can.
Interesting thread. I agree, and in general I have stopped giving a f when it comes to advice or counseling others. People are just gonna do what they want to do anyway. I strive to be an anti-influencer, possibly a defense mechanism to avoid getting enmeshed into others' drama or be blamed if a decision doesn't work out. Not my problem.
As I approach my 50s it's happening naturally to me, what's known as women feeling "invisible" as they get older and no longer getting the attention they once did. As an introvert with social anxieties, I'm okay with this! Almost a dream come true. Thinking back, my life would have been better overall if people would have left me alone.
I'm not quite getting the philosophical angle to this. Unless you're a secluded monk, your actions--vanilla or not--have the capacity to affect someone else, and probably almost always in ways you'll never know.
I hesitate to say more because I think it would detract from a philosophical discussion and turn more toward a psychological one.
I have just turned 54 and realize the biggest gift you can give to most everyone is to " leave them alone".
One action by you can cause a chain of events that often can be unfavorable or life changing. I have had this happen to me and I am sure I did the same.
I don't follow or relate to this thread. Unless I'm missing something, this thread sounds relevant to people who habitually harass and annoy others.
Good and helping can start of chain reaction of good / positivity. So it can go either way. It'd be a shame for people to avoid others, and what good they could bring to them.
Location: In a perfect world winter does not exist
3,657 posts, read 2,937,139 times
Reputation: 6739
Really watch the movie Babel with Brad Pitt. A kind gesture changed the life of one person and almost lead to a death. The person of course did not know anything if it. It had consequences across continents.
Kind of like telling a tourist of a good place to eat than hearing there was a shooting there and the person was killed.
A great way to live in just mind your own business.
Sounds like an awful life, TBH, and it presumes everything downstream is negative. I don't think the human mind can easily comprehend the infinite number of ways our actions are interconnected and in the end I don't think it's fair to assume it's always or even often (or even ever) a "negative" outcome.
And it's a movie.
But I guess you do you.
Last edited by rokuremote; 11-20-2023 at 03:31 PM..
I don't give advice or input myself into situations unless someone asks or needs my help. I'm always making friends and love interacting. I enjoy my neighbors and have get togethers often. I smile at strangers and hold doors, give up seats, and do my best to always be upbeat.
Yes, it doesn't always go perfect, but I like to live a happy life and include as many who care to be included.
Life if a gift, and I enjoy every day I have a chance to live it.
I don't give advice or input myself into situations unless someone asks or needs my help. I'm always making friends and love interacting. I enjoy my neighbors and have get togethers often. I smile at strangers and hold doors, give up seats, and do my best to always be upbeat.
Yes, it doesn't always go perfect, but I like to live a happy life and include as many who care to be included.
Life if a gift, and I enjoy every day I have a chance to live it.
I feel the same. I don't believe that we're supposed to live 'small' under an assumption that even the nicest gesture might have some downside months/years later. And even that logic and the vocabulary pinning it is suspect. For instance, what if I walk down the street and punch some random pregnant stranger in the face, she hits the ground and dies BUT her unborn baby was going to be a serial killer and now, voila, I prevented it! Nope.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
