Stake a Claim 1/2 ~ A friends thoughts

I am going through a rough moment (hopefully only a moment).

This is a message I received in support of my situation and other similar situations I have faced recently. The names being used have been changed but we can all fill in our own significant names to people we have enabled or that have taken advantage, disrespected, used, and or abused us.

I hope this translates well?

I'll tell you what the secret is. The secret is, that this is MY story. And that is YOUR story. We come into this world and we are given a life and then we spend most of our days trying to hold onto that life because if we don't use it for our own purposes, then someone else will be happy to claim it for theirs. Whether it be Philip or Susan, there will always be someone who doesn't have enough of what they need or want and they will be looking around for people to plunder for more time, more attention, more money, more love, more of whatever it is they are lacking at the moment. And there will always be Karen's and Bill's, moving people around to suit their purposes. And they manipulate others because they are either too big for their own lives and hence have to claim the lives of others so they can spill over into them, or their are too small and cowardly to pull off their crap all on their own, so they use others to hide behind. But, it is our job to write our own story and to develop healthy boundaries and to hold firm to them. It's tough to do because the lines get blurred by notions of love, support, responsibility and guilt, among other things, and those of us with strong moral character get taken advantage of by those with weaker moral strength. I really think that the time has come for someone to write a book, maybe even me, that strips away some of the Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver mentality that paints the perfect little picture of the perfect little home, and makes it clear to people that we are not responsible for being the answer to someone else's prayers. We don't have to be saviours. It's not selfish to look out for ourselves. And we don't have to be liked by everyone. The older I get, the more important I think it is to claim our lives and to start living them authentically. To hell with everyone else. Philip and Susan, as much as we love them, and we do love them, can get out if they don't like it. That seems harsh but if you go back a generation or two, to your father's time, or your grandfather's time, that's the way they lived their lives, and the kids that left home and struck out on their own, survived and even prospered. The kids that we see today, giving little but expecting lots, we made them that way. We took away their anger at the lifestyle they were handed, that is until we try to alter that very lifestyle that we provided. We took away their drive to get out and get more for themselves and when we do try to push them, for their own good, to be more driven nothing but confusion, frustration, and resentment come pouring in. It's like in order to balance out what our parents and grandparents did or didn't give us, we went too far the other way. The thing I want more for Philip than anything else, is for him to somehow figure out that he has to claim his life, and take responsibility for it, if he is ever going to be happy. Karen and Bill are prime examples of people who are too busy controlling everyone else to stop and take a look at their own pathetic lives and the pain they have inflicted on others with their actions. You and I just need to know who we are, and hold the lines. The Karen's and Bill's of this world are so convinced of their own rightness, that they are never going to listen to anything we have to say, and we will always be the ones who are too sensitive, or who misinterpret their motives, or who are way out in left field or are being to ''disrespectful'' or 'inappropriate''. The Karen's and Bill's of this world are just unhappy people looking for someone or something to blame their unhappiness on. God forbid that they should ever have to look at themselves and ask themselves if they are the ones with the problem. It's their story. It's their game. And it's our fault if we let them make it ours. We have to know in ourselves that it is their story and they can lay blame and accuse all they want, we don't have to accept, or take any of it on us. These are the deepest spiritual lessons of all ... to know ourselves and to live our lives authentically.