WHO SAID YOU HAVE TO CHANGE?

dragthepen aka conversations with J. R. Floyd

Dear Readers, 

It is not your responsibility to change someone or make them into someone different. People are capable of change, but that should be their decision. When we encounter people, the choice is to either accept them for who they are or move on. I know that it is not easy learning to deal with other people’s pet peeves, faults, and what we see as habits. Ladies there is no prince charming so get your head out of the fairy tales, and rethink revising that long wish list of requirements for what you think will be the perfect mate. Men stop fantasizing about Beyonce or Kim Kardashian. Those are plastic Barbie dolls surgical enhanced superficial women who will not look twice at your sagging belly and receding hairline. People snap out of your daydreams and look at the person in front of you growing with disappointment because you wish she or he would change. 

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be with a physically attractive person, however sometimes beautiful people come with ugly souls and bad characteristics. It is not our responsibility to nag people into becoming the ideal mate according to the impossible Standards of beauty and materialistic needs. I have learned from years of bad choices and reading and believing self-help relationship books about ” how to have the man of my dreams” for years I worked out and starved myself to create a body that men would like, only to be ignored and ill-treated. Do not feel sorry for me this was my fault, why, because the men I encountered did not asked me to change. If they were getting their needs met, they did not care about changing me because I was already what they wanted weak and desperate.

I spent thousands on clothes, hair, make up, lingerie and time and energy to improve myself to be better, so when my prince arrived there would be nothing about me that needed to change or improve. Oh, how shallow was my thinking. I was preoccupied with my outer appearance that I was not paying attention to the fact that I was suffering from low self-worth. When people struggle with low self-esteem and self-worth that is when others prey upon them because people who struggle with lack of self-confidence will allow people to change them because of the desperation to be like, love and belong.

I strived and arrived at the age of fifty-eight. Learned many lessons through difficult experiences that did make me stronger, wiser, and proceeding with caution. I do not wish for people to change to suit me because I have learned to let people be who they are and keep checking on who I am. Remember the saying, ” be careful what you wish for because you just might get it”. When you create the monster, you must learn to live with what you created.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

Dear Readers 

News flash people are not recycled trash. I look around society and see how little regards people have for each other, especially in intimate relationships. Couples are disposing of their partners like they are recycled trash.

I dislike referring to people as trash, but there is no other metaphor I could think of to describe the inhumane manner people treat each other. People are not disposable, we cannot just disregard the time, energy, emotions, and love that an individual invests into a relationship or friendship to be thrown out like useless trash. It is said that ” one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” in other words, an item that one person throws away and does not see value in it another person sees potential.

People are not clothing items worn because it feels and looks good for a period, however without the proper care overtime the piece of clothing fades or becomes too small. Therefore, the item has outlived its usefulness. This is an example of how people are discarded. Clothing does not have feelings people do. I have seen people crushed by partner who brag about ” trading up” their partners for someone younger or richer referring to the former partner as “old trash.”  

I know people who take better care of their garbage than people do of each other. People lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape, molested, use, abuse, neglect, destroy, disrespect, dehumanize, degrade, belittle, take away another person’s innocence, and scheming causing another person to become emotionally broken and beaten down by mistreatment until there is nothing of value left to give. And then they are discarded like rubbish. 

People have become less valued. Employers choose profit over people. Some people in relationships choose materialism over their loved ones. Women go after the six figure salary men belittling and trash talking the hard-working average Joe. Men are more attracted to women who look like plastic Barbie dolls. We cannot view people as recycled trash wanting them transformed into someone more useful after being reprocessed. News flash human beings do not go through a trash refused process to become more useful to other people.

If this sounds like a rant, well partially it is. I disappointed and have lost hope and faith in humanity. People simply do not love and have compassion for their fellow kindred. The selfish and ill treatment that is displayed leaves me SMH. I know that we do not live in a perfect world and people change because of circumstances. What is it going to take to go back to the days of ” I am my brother’s keeper?” 

I often reminisce about the good old days when the people in the village cared and upheld standards of love, compassion, sympathy, care, and honor. Those were the days that people were seen for who they are good and honest. And nobody was thrown out with the trash.

Thank you for stopping by Dragthepen.