The Manure Pile

Not my usual little story for a smile but I really think it is something important.

A lot of loneliness, bad feelings and bad self image come from bad teaching.

Growing up, my dad wasn't the nicest guy about treating my mother right. At least in my eyes... He didn't booze, didn't beat her, matter of fact he was nice in comparison to how to many women get treated. But he was mentally abusive and his was the only opinion that mattered.

He was the same with his kids. It was his way and his way only.

Now if you did something wrong or not his way. He'd find the nicest words to let you know that you were the most useless piece of trash on the face of the earth. You didn't and never would have the ability to do anything right. The absolute only way for you to even consider surviving was to do things his way...

Then there were the school ground teachings of other kids. Once out on my own there were the teachings from others who had the same kind of teachings...

Results for me. Failed marriages, drunken drug filled years, major lack of self confidence and very negative self esteem.

Heck, I was just useless and doomed to remain that way.

My first wife was and still is a wonderful person. She was not going to put up with the crud I'd learned. Well, like the idiot I was, I treated her like crap. Just didn't know what to do with someone who wouldn't do things my way... But that's how it's supposed to work, isn't it?...

Life went on. Never got any better until one day I was sitting along a nice trout stream in a farmers field. Yup, there I was with a beer at my side, a doobie hanging from my mouth and pulling in the fourth trout of the day.

I'd been partying the night before so I was a little tired. I found a shady spot under a tree and just kicked back.

Now when I get relaxed I tend to ponder...

As I leaned, back against the tree, fishin pole propped on a rock, beer in hand, nice buzz going and really hoping no more fish would bite. A strange idea went through my mind... I'm not really like my dad at all. He had no time to fish. Wouldn't even consider drinking. The pot. He'd probably wanna take me out if he knew! I didn't dress like him, which was usually a fight when we saw each other. I was adventurous. Not him, same boring life as long as I could remember. I liked fast cars, wild women, my motor cycle, rock n roll, blah, blah, blah...... Nothing that was like dad at all.

Only thing we had in common other than being related by blood was the work ethic. But that I learned from cold and hunger...

Now I was well aware my life was really messed up! As I thought about it all I wondered if just maybe all I'd learned about myself from him was just a load of bull.

I stood on my own, paid my bills, paid for my own darned food. Heck I was now running a construction crew and darned near running the business for the guy I worked for.

Humph, I was something. I wasn't a complete waste, not a total loser. And I darned sure didn't do it his way!

Well if he was wrong about that then it just could be he was wrong about how he treated other people and especially women...

Then I saw a big ole cow patty about thirty feet away. Had a pretty flower growing right up outta it.

I'm a strange thinking sort of person but I kinda saw life.

That little flower grew from a pile of sh--. Seemed to be telling me I could grow too.

It wasn't easy. Over the following years those old ugly teachings would sneak back many times! But I was determined to push them aside and keep learning and changing into what I wanted to be. Not what some crap head tried to make me.

There have been a whole bunch of cow patties dumped on me since then also. But now I just see that as more fertilizer that can make me better. Those cow patties and the people that place them in my life are now lessons of just what I do not want to be.

You too can be who or what you want to be. Why let the teachings of some a-hole keep you from it?

It is truly a sorry excuse if you just go on feeling bad for yourself and blaming YOUR life and YOUR problems on the sorry people who made you feel the way YOU do...

You really are right where you want to be. If you don't like where you are... CHANGE IT!

Don't like how someone makes you feel? Stay away from them or just teach yourself to ignore their idiotioc hurtful words...

Ooo, thay say that stuff to my friends... If those ?friends? think less of you because of what some jerk says are they really friends? Move on!

So do it. Let all that crap that has been put in your mind be the fertilizer that helps you grow into a fantastically wonderful you!