Wednesday 4 February 2015

The Curse of the Optimists.

I'm one of those people who tend to see only the good in people. Is there a word for it? People optimist something? Yeah i have no clue. But well i tend to do that. I've been friends with a lot of people since i was a kid who other people tended to cast of as being "bad". I wasn't really cast of as bad though. People who i was also friends with often told me that i shouldn't associate with them and i always failed to understand why! I mean sure they might have some bad habits but still they were pretty great to me and no one really ever forced me to do the "bad" stuff with them so i mean i never saw it as a problem.
You must be thinking now what's the curse of the optimist then? Well its not exactly of optimists but more like the curse of the 'people optimist somethings' if you know what i'm saying :P
So the thing with us is that we always see the good in everyone. Now i as a person accept that people are grey. No one is either JUST good or JUST bad. We're all a mix of both. Some people might be "greyer" than others but there's always a good side and the curse with us people is that no matter what we can ONLY see the good side. And it tends to work out fine. Yes, people have a good and a bad side but you don't really use both sides with everyone. With some people you are only bad and that's what the problem is we can't not believe in these people because we only see the good side and we tend to hope that they'll come around. Which they never do. I mean its never happened with me at least. 
And this doesn't mean that i'm blaming them! They aren't bad people. (See how this curse works?!)
I feel like its a problem of upbringing not their's but rather my own. As a kid you remember having those moral value classes? What did they always teach us? Most of the morals were taken up from Gandhian ideals. If someone slaps you be a lil' bitch and offer them your other cheek and they out of a sudden kindness of heart will feel guilty and apologize to you. Yeah doesn't that sound like bullshit?! It does not work like that! You offer someone to take advantage of you and they sure as hell will! Be honest. I mean i guess i would. 
I never realised how tightly molded my thinking is until very recently. I tend to accept people no matter how they are and i always thought that i'm pretty open minded. Then a few days back i read this article on female-on-male rape and no matter how hard i tried i just could not justify that he had been actually raped! Not that that's in any way related to this but this is when i realised how molded my thinking is because of how i've been taught as a kid. What's right and what's wrong. How men are and how women are. How people are. Men want sex. Women don't. Hence men rape and women don't. Simple as that. Molded. Doesn't work that way! It really is not that black and white. It took me days to understand and to break this mold.  
I think we'd have been better off if someone taught us in those moral classes that people are grey. And how it's alright to sometimes see that they can be bad too and especially if they are being bad to you and how you aren't obliged to stick around no matter what. I think it would've been better if someone told me it's okay to walk away even if you see some goodness in another person if you don't benefit from it in any way. I would've been better off if someone told me that i don't owe it to anyone to give them a second chance because hell i tend to give like 7 or 8 till i realise I'm stupid and even then not really! And i guess that's the advice i would give to anyone, its okay to see the bad in people.