If I could be anyone else for a day, I would choose to be my enemy, My nemesis, or anyone who does not like me. What an opportunity for improvement!
I realize that there may be a few people will have no real or fixable reason to dislike me, or maybe they dislike me for reasons I cannot control. Examples might be, I don’t like her husband, her kids, her dog, etc. None of that is going to change obviously. And then there is the group who may think I do not measure up to their physical attributes area. I am older, and choose not to do any work to make me look younger. There are a lot of women my age who look incredible in comparison to me. I use a daily and nightly moisturizer, but beyond that, I like my aging face. I love my wrinkles, my white hair (I use purple shampoo to enhance the whiteness – so maybe that counts), and I am overweight. I struggle with autoimmune diseases that have challenged me in the weight department. I am active, and I eat cleanly, but I refuse to eat less than 1,000 calories daily, or workout beyond 30 minutes daily so that I can fit someone else’s idea of the perfect weight. The glp1’s are of no interest to me either, and I doubt if they would be good for anyone with autoimmune disorders.
Now, all of that said – I want to know how I can improve my interactions with those who might find me less than desirable. What did I say, or not say that earned me to be disdained? What can I do to change your opinion. As humans, we always have room for improvement. Sometimes people think it is just easier to ignore others than to express what it is or why they don’t like them. I think this would be an invaluable self improvement tool. We can invent an anonymous social media app, we sign up and then people can post anything that they found wanting about your or your personality. We can call it YES, Your Enemies Speak. As I indicated above, no physical attributes or bashing of family members, this would be limited to “relatability”.
And we can expand on that for couples. When couples divorce, before the final decree, it should be an option for each to complete a questionnaire to detail what went wrong.
My ex, who I divorced at age 22, is still super angry with me to the point that he will not attend any event for our daughter if I am there. I am 70 now. That’s a lot of anger. At 22, I am sure I came up short in the wife area, especially since we married at 19, bought a house at 20, and had a daughter at 21. Here’s what my write up would look like:
There is nothing wrong with you – we just were not meant to be together. I am really sorry that I disappointed you, I was looking for a roommate, not a husband, and I was too young and ignorant to know the difference. But our daughter is beautiful and she did better in the marriage department. Fifty years ago, girls just didn’t move out of their homes until they found a husband. That’s a terrible reason to marry, but to make up for that, I made sure that I helped all of my daughters, ours and the 3 others that are mine, lived on their own before they made a decision to get married.
You were young too, and we did not treat each other kindly. I hope and wish that life has been kind to you, and that you have found love. I have to be honest, I have no need to talk now that our daughter is nearly 50 years old, I do not think we had very much in common to begin with yet you are her dad, and so I would never wish anything but the best for you.
If I could take this just one step further, if it were possible, I’d like to know what my dog thinks about me, yet I have the feeling that when he gets that adorable look in his eyes, he might just be picturing me as looking like a juicy steak!
Laboccadellaverita 