A Lesson I Don't Even Want to Learn! What is one to do when there is a lesson that keeps smacking you in the face and you just don't want to learn it? Generally I am a person who looks to the feedback from the environment as to what areas could use some growth. Good plan? Well it has been. I have learned how to be a better partner by learning from my experiences and what I see from others experiences. Teaching is a very reflective profession where we are encouraged to learn from the successes and failures we see in our experiences. Now here is the rub. I keep bumping into the same thing, be manipulative, scheming, dishonest, back-biting, and self-centered or be smacked with a 2X4 at random intervals intended to murder your spirit. There are many cliches that cover this topic, dog eat dog world, kill or be killed, survival of the fittest, bully or be bullied, etc. Well none of these come from a positive perspective and none fit with my personal constitution. So the decision that recycles through my life is live true to yourself or prevent the 2X4 from striking. Perhaps I should lower my expectations. Perhaps I should just accept that people will always be intentionally trying to destroy you with no care for your humanity. Intellectually I totally get it. Spiritually, emotionally, from a humanist perspective I have no ability to understand the destruction humans see fit to wage upon one another. Where has community gone? Where has love thy neighbor withered away to? What ever happened to accepting one another and a desire to grow together? How about a little golden rule being practiced? Am I a bit jaded here. Yes. My life is filled with truly wonderful people! A long, long list of wonderful people in my life and the terrific ways that they impact my life could easily be created. We humans don't struggle with the things that are good to us, it is the pain and difficulty that we wrestle with on this earth. Therefore the people who love us and treat us with respect and kindness do not get as much air time as they should. So the question began with continuing to be a person who puts tons of effort into being a person that I can respect and honor or be a person that the bullies can't pick on. Now I think perhaps it is morphing into why spend time and energy on the ones who cause so much pain rather than investing in the ones who make my life wonderful.