We all have a past; we’re in the present but can’t say if we all have a future because how we deal with a past will determine if we’ll have a good, doomed or great future.
We tend to be very self-aware but we all have two selves – the private self (our own thoughts and feelings) and public self (the self we like to portray to everyone apart from the self; the one that creates good impression)…You can dispute it but it’s a fact. Even though we want to keep up appearances to the public, we equally take the good off our impression by divulging too much ‘unnecessary information’.
Sometimes, in our conversations with people, we talk and talk away without a care in the world because in our somewhere in our mind, the ‘who’ we’re talking to either matters or does not matter. It’s more like choosing who we want to respect and not to respect on the basis of what we ‘get from them’.
We erroneously assume/believe that the outcome of whatever information we’re sharing is not going to affect us in anyway because:
– It’s not going to take anything off from who we are
– The person is/may not be ‘that’ important
– We’re not going to lose anything
– To score points (the silly untruths we tell others to look good)
But at the end of the day, we realise we either shot ourselves in the foot, lost ‘valuable’ people who may otherwise be ‘useful’ to us or we handed people the power to abuse us because we refused to bridle our tongue. I used to believe that anything we say in anger we don’t mean it/them but actually what we say when angry are nagging issues we’ve suppressed which came out at the ‘wrong’ time so we do mean what we’re saying.
We all attribute our great successes to internal causes and our failures to external sources (we’re all self-serving bias) and we expect people to equally see things our way. Therefore, when sharing dark and haunting past to the ‘new’ chic or guy (which will never in anyway have a bearing in the new relationship), we expect them to sympathise with us because whatever we did then was not our fault.
The direct insults and insinuations we ‘receive’ from people is the information/interview we granted them. Sieve through what they tell you during an argument and you’ll realise it’s what you told them as/in a (harmless) conversation that they’re using to belittle you. A partner always insulting your family, someone bringing your past to the fore or being psychologically and emotionally abused by your significant other is as a result of the supremacy we gave them by sharing.
I’m not talking about deceiving a significant other by being dishonest or secretive but there are some things you keep close to the chest and some information the other person NEEDS to know. People use what we tell them against us and it knocks our self-esteem and confidence so hard. The best person to trust our unneeded/unnecessary/messy looking information with is ourselves (remember I said public is everyone apart from you).
Being secretive will fuel suspicion and suspicions definitely fuels mistrust – a relationship with no trust is a very weak one. Trusting someone is quite risky these days so why plant mistrust in someone’s mind and expect the relationship to be a happy one? The lessons we learn from past relationships is what we carry along into new relationships and that is the only thing worth dwelling on.
Sometimes people ask for ‘reference’ about us from others or vice versa when they want to start serious relationship/partnership and we give out information which may ‘kill’ the relationship before it even starts or the relationship will start alright but the information always play soccer in the mind of the person – anything apart from vindictiveness, what they/we give out is information we’ve been given. Our attitude towards people sways relatively fast and easily.
If the information you’re so eager to share with the whole world has really no bearing in your relationship, why not bridle the tongue. Everything is permissible but not beneficial….you’re free to share, but do so with caution – if it’s not needed; bridle the tongue.
Let us chat but not carelessly – it matters in the long run or even in the nearest future. Don’t give people the power to disrespect you!
WORD! Story of my life. I always know that anger don’t make people say things out of the blue. What they say is exactly what they mean. Interesting article
What an article! We shouldn’t give them arms to harm us. It’s true that public is everyone apart from you.