Comments on: Change Is Always Possible

By: Change Your Stress Level by Changing Your Life « Test Links

Change Your Stress Level by Changing Your Life « Test Links — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:26:08 +0000

[...] Change is Always Possible [...]

By: Change is Always Possible

Change is Always Possible — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:42:29 +0000

[...] Change is Always Possible [...]

By: Tim Brownson

Tim Brownson — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:03:05 +0000

@ Cam and Melissa – Glad you two helped each other and thanks a lot Cam for such a detailed response and taking the trouble to write it.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:31:42 +0000

@CamKC you know, that actually made me feel better, not more hopeless. I think it makes me feel better to be able to justify my feelings rather than try to irradicate them all together. Obviously irradication would be ideal, but like you said, that may be something unattainable because he just doesn't realize what's going on. Melissas last blog post..What is Time to a Pig?

By: CamKC

CamKC — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:29:38 +0000

Hi. The negativity of the lady towards her boyfriend is not a question of being in a bad mood, or anything similarly transitory. I have met people who have sailed through life through having rich parents, and many are completely unaware of the real hardship that others around them are suffering – because of the course their lives have taken, they quite literally “have no idea” at a deeply emotional level. They may academically concede that some people are poor, but have no conception of the hardship and hopelessness that intrinsically results. They can’t help it but they exude an unaffected arrogance, an imperviousness, as they know they are very unlikely to ever encounter anything in the nature of wanting.

The unfortunate thing is that it is impossible to “explain” the hardships to him, as they have never been experienced: the lady and the boyfriend are worlds apart.

So I completely understand the lady’s worries that she feels this way, but when you encounter people who have had a very untroubled, luxurious life, and their current life trajectory looks like they are going to continue to enjoy a high income, then for someone close by, who recognises their partner’s ignorance of hardship, when their own situation is less than ideal, then the gulf between them can be recognised particularly by the less fortunate one, and may well seem unbridgable.

Asking someone who has seen hardship, (and who has seen that comfortable people can unintentionally seem arrogant and smug and less than sensitive to the plight of the poor), to alter their mood state and to “overcome their hangup” about the untroubledness of their fortunate partner is maybe asking too much.

The unintentional ignorance that people who have been rich all their lives is irksome to those who realise that they truly “have no idea” how the poor have to operate.

And there’s nothing you can do remove this ignorance that the fortunate can’t avoid carrying around with them.

Hardship is only truly understood when it is genuinely experienced, and cannot be truly comprehended, even by ladling out food at a soup-kitchen for down-and-outs on one night a week.

Sorry I have no solutions – but this isn’t something that can be fixed by coaching the lady to “lighten-up” her attitude. The resentment that follows from realising that the rich partner has “no idea” about true hardship will always be there: there is an unbridgable gulf between them that counselling won’t be able to bridge.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:10:16 +0000

My best friends were my best teachers, we taught each other what NOT to do. =) Melissas last blog post..Easy Distraction

By: Tim Brownson

Tim Brownson — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:58:21 +0000

@ Samantha – Thanks a lot and that’s brilliant that she has inspired you. One of the hardest things in life is to learn from others mistakes and anybody that does it, has my admiration.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:36:46 +0000

Tim this is great advice that you’ve given Melissa.

I myself know her in person and am amazed at how far she has come in life with her relationships. She’s an inspiration for me in example and I can even relate, or at least in the past to her current situation and even with her doubt’s she’s handling it far more than I did in my case. I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’m happy to see she’s not making the same one’s and is even reaching out for a check on her emotions.