Here's a hard lesson I had to learn when I was a kid: Never take a free rabbit from a flea market and surprise your parents with it. :( Short version - rabbit died, I got whipped and had to write many many lines ..and I was grounded. To this day, I feel guilty whenever I see a rabbit.
I'm sorry that happened. That must have ben pretty traumatic.
Man, who's giving out free rabbits to permissionless kids at the flea market? A kid doesn't have the perspective necessary to think twice about accepting a free rabbit. Not when somebody's dangling it front of you! If that were me (as the kid) I'd be like "BEST DAY EVER!" A free rabbit! It wouldn't be until halfway home that'd I'd realize: whoa. I might technically be in trouble.
But don't feel guilty. It's not your fault for taking it, it's the fault of whoever was out there irresponsibly handing out free rabbits to kids. That's just irresponsible.
Hm. I thought I commented on this yesterday! But it's not here. Well, I said something along the lines of this not being a hard lesson for me to learn, and perhaps the difficulty degrees of lessons are particular to the individual. I agree this may be a difficult one to put into practice, especially if you happened to fall in love with the person who is bad for you before you realized s/he was bad for you. But in my opinion, it's an obvious one, and why I've always been very choosy about friends and others, never too bothered by the option of being alone, either. Yikes to some of the alternatives.
This is going on way longer than my original comment.
Anyway, I decided a very hard lesson for me to learn/accept is that you have no one to blame but yourself. Because, really? There's no one else I can blame? At the very least, can't I blame fate or something? Chance? Accident? You see, I'm very unwilling to accept that blame. Because damn, if I don't want to just kick myself unconscious for it if I am to blame.
@jill, I agree with Joe's general attitude that you are not really to blame for the rabbit incident! The man giving them away certainly is/was. Of course a kid is going to think a rabbit is a great idea. With no disrespect to your parents, I wish they had seen it a bit more that way.
@blue - that's a damn good one! But I'm laughing because, yours is the one that for ME is easy! Maybe I just like kicking myself.
I think that each of us comes into it all with certain pieces in place, in terms of being receptive or finding certain things easy to understand. Some of us find one lesson easy without it even needing to be explained, while this other lesson is impossible!
But then we all meet, and mix, and try our best, and maybe teach and learn by living example. And we're the example for others of the lessons we "get", and we try to learn the others from them!
@Joe - you're a hippie! No, usually I feel that way too.
But my problem with the blame is not the kicking---or it is the kicking, maybe: I don't think you're supposed to want to beat yourself senseless every time you do something wrong or make a mistake. I think you're supposed to be able to accept responsibility and move on. Whereas I, unless I can assign blame elsewhere (and am usually able to then walk away quite calmly, because what else can I do?) , tend to stay in the ring kicking the unconscious body into a red mash of flesh.
7 comments:
This is yet another good one. Hard lessons to learn...let me see...
How about: A hard lesson to learn is to never provoke someone who has a loaded gun in a bag right next to them. Hm, yeah I like yours better. :p
I'll tell you though, yours is probably going to go harder on you NOT to learn! :-D
Yeah, it would take a special kind of fool..
Here's a hard lesson I had to learn when I was a kid: Never take a free rabbit from a flea market and surprise your parents with it. :( Short version - rabbit died, I got whipped and had to write many many lines ..and I was grounded. To this day, I feel guilty whenever I see a rabbit.
Holy...! The rabbit DIED?
I'm sorry that happened. That must have ben pretty traumatic.
Man, who's giving out free rabbits to permissionless kids at the flea market? A kid doesn't have the perspective necessary to think twice about accepting a free rabbit. Not when somebody's dangling it front of you! If that were me (as the kid) I'd be like "BEST DAY EVER!" A free rabbit! It wouldn't be until halfway home that'd I'd realize: whoa. I might technically be in trouble.
But don't feel guilty. It's not your fault for taking it, it's the fault of whoever was out there irresponsibly handing out free rabbits to kids. That's just irresponsible.
Hm. I thought I commented on this yesterday! But it's not here. Well, I said something along the lines of this not being a hard lesson for me to learn, and perhaps the difficulty degrees of lessons are particular to the individual. I agree this may be a difficult one to put into practice, especially if you happened to fall in love with the person who is bad for you before you realized s/he was bad for you. But in my opinion, it's an obvious one, and why I've always been very choosy about friends and others, never too bothered by the option of being alone, either. Yikes to some of the alternatives.
This is going on way longer than my original comment.
Anyway, I decided a very hard lesson for me to learn/accept is that you have no one to blame but yourself. Because, really? There's no one else I can blame? At the very least, can't I blame fate or something? Chance? Accident? You see, I'm very unwilling to accept that blame. Because damn, if I don't want to just kick myself unconscious for it if I am to blame.
@jill, I agree with Joe's general attitude that you are not really to blame for the rabbit incident! The man giving them away certainly is/was. Of course a kid is going to think a rabbit is a great idea. With no disrespect to your parents, I wish they had seen it a bit more that way.
@blue - that's a damn good one! But I'm laughing because, yours is the one that for ME is easy! Maybe I just like kicking myself.
I think that each of us comes into it all with certain pieces in place, in terms of being receptive or finding certain things easy to understand. Some of us find one lesson easy without it even needing to be explained, while this other lesson is impossible!
But then we all meet, and mix, and try our best, and maybe teach and learn by living example. And we're the example for others of the lessons we "get", and we try to learn the others from them!
SWEET!
@Joe - you're a hippie! No, usually I feel that way too.
But my problem with the blame is not the kicking---or it is the kicking, maybe: I don't think you're supposed to want to beat yourself senseless every time you do something wrong or make a mistake. I think you're supposed to be able to accept responsibility and move on. Whereas I, unless I can assign blame elsewhere (and am usually able to then walk away quite calmly, because what else can I do?) , tend to stay in the ring kicking the unconscious body into a red mash of flesh.
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