Dick Wulf's Tongue-in-Cheek Newsletter to Improve Relationships
slightly off-the-wall BUT better than graffiti

The Woe is Me Issue
© October 2001, Dick Wulf, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Why take on challenges when you can get so much out of feeling sorry for yourself?

NOTE: This is supposed to be humorous so we can look at ourselves and have fun. We are all of us a bit off the mark. We can cry about it or have fun and laugh at ourselves. Laughing at ourselves and not taking ourselves too seriouosly allows us to view ourselves just seriously enough to change, but not so seriously as to inhibit our improvement by condemnation or defensiveness.

HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR VICTIM MENTALITY AND GO ON SUFFERING

A victim mentality helps you stay weak and helpless. So, let's review how to cultivate feeling like a victim.

If you had a tough childhood, especially if you were picked on or abused, continue to think that you are small and helpless. After all, there is not much difference in being a midget among giants and being a giant among giants. (Or is there?) Now that you are grown up and the bad times are over, you can't be pushed around like you were a long time ago. Do not - I say again - do not let yourself believe that it is really over. Continue to think that you can be abused, unloved, and beaten up by life. The fact that no one can pick on you the way they did when you were little (because you can put them in jail or do something to prevent them) is irrelevant. Do you hear?! Irrelevant.

Don't think that you are responsible for your own happiness! Perish the thought. That might actually lead to happiness. No, you don't want to go there. You want to believe that happiness is not attainable because life just doesn't work out for you. Why get your hopes up?

To stay helpless, you want to pretty much always focus on how things are better for other people. See how they get breaks in life that you do not. Especially focus on the fact that life is not fair.

Always put your happiness in someone else's hands. Then you can require them to make you feel good. Why, they should always do what you need them to do, speak to you like you are extremely precious, and treat you like you are not capable of doing the difficult things in life. (Ah, Sweet Misery!?)

Don't expect yourself to do hard things. If you actually accomplish something difficult, you might not be able to maintain that victim mentality of weakness and inability to live up to the reasonable expectations of others. (Wimps live longer - or do they?)

Always want to be rescued. Hey, how can you be a victim if you don't need to be rescued? No, you want to dream that somebody with a lot of money will come along and think that you are the greatest thing since DSL high-speed internet access (french bread and jam for you older readers) and give you a bunch of money to get you out of debt. (Helpless ain't so bad!?)

Desire everything to be easy . . . and comfortable . . . and pleasurable. Since even the rich and famous can't buy a life that is always easy, comfortable and pleasurable, you can be assured of getting discouraged. Then you can go limp. Limp saps you of all of your energy and you don't really have to try. Trying is not good. It ruins your victim image and others won't always rush in to help you out.

Expect everything to come out just fine. Put a little effort in, and fantastic results should come - right? And, when those results are disappointing, then you can get discouraged and enjoy that truly awful feeling of helplessness. (Yea! Victimology at its finest.)

AND THE REAL POINT IS?

America is toughening up. So why don't we all toughen up? Tough talk is easy. But, we will all have to do more than just say strong things.

So, why not shuck that Poor Me baloney. Sure, things don't go perfect. Where do you think you are, Disney World? In fact, things can pretty much be counted on to not go the way we want them to. That can be seen as a horrible thing, or just one more challenge. Solving problems is just "all in a day's work".

How we think about things is the key. If we truly believe that life is extremely difficult, we can think and feel it is too much for us (victim thinking, probably brought on by actual victimization in the past), or we can accept that we must meet the challenges as best we can. For those of us who have played sports, we would rather play a challenging team than a team that we can beat so easily that there is no challenge and no real glory.

So, if we work on redefining life, we can pick out reasonable challenges and leave the victim mentality behind. For example, we might have a marriage with tension and misunderstanding. It is easy to feel sorry that we are in such a relationship. But, with just a little redesigning, we can think of such a marriage as a challenge to solve the problems and come out with one of the best marriages around. It is the troublesome marriages that have so much potential. Whatever is making things difficult are often differences - two different sets of strengths that are battling it out rather than joining forces.

We can become competitors rather than victims by "getting real" about life. Life is easy for no one, and it is relatively easy for only a few. But, by thinking like a competitor, it is possible to set realistic goals and solve the problems and reach those goals.

For example, many of us thought that our life was terrible in one or more ways before the terror of September 11, 2001. But, once we saw what was happening in New York and D.C., our problems seemed to be a whole lot smaller. That is because before the tragedy, we defined life ideally. The good life was having a lot of things and a ton of money in the bank. Now, we will settle for more realistic and achievable goals, like safety and precious time with family. (Are any of you still thinking the main things in life are things and money? Hey, don't do that. Wake up!)

Those without victim mentalities decide what is realistic and reasonable to expect out of life if they expend smart effort. They realize that many good things are achievable if they do not focus on the slightly out-of-reach things. Too late to become a millionaire or to retire at age 55? Forgetaboutit! Not important for happiness. Just pick another kind of happiness. How about a simple life with friends and volunteering in the community instead of self-indulgent trips around the world? Join the majority of the world and don't desire the top one-percent privileges. In the past only kings enjoyed such things. It is easy to define a fun life within what is achievable.

All around us people are adjusting their desires and appetites to fit with reality. They are not feeling sorry for themselves that they did not come from a wealthy family or that they do not have the perfect body.

So! There is really no reason to feel sorry for yourself. Bite the bullet and fight back! There's no reason to remain a victim. Rise above your circumstances. Do what you have to do to build a life you can enjoy.

CAN YOU FORGET YOURSELF FOR LARGER CONCERNS?

Ever since Adam and Eve forgot the larger issue in the Garden of Eden, men and women have not wanted to curtail individual freedoms for the larger good. Larger than "me" is "us". Larger than "us" is "family". Larger than "family" is "the community". Nation. World.

Did you want to be with family on September 11, 2001 when terrorists got our attention? For many, family became the primary concern. Before that the scariest thing we might have thought of was a two-story outhouse. (Unless we knew that the top story was for when the snow gets very deep.) Now, we've all been woken from our Safe-and-Secure Dream. And the question is, "Are we ready for war and a changed-forever world?" Or do we still think life is all about recreation? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the purpose of democracy. Yet, we want to think God owes us happiness, not only the pursuit of it.

Well, Gertrude, that ain't the way it is.

All over the world people live in uncertainty about safety. We can learn to do the same.

But, we can have each other -- and cherish our families much more.

Famous Folks Who Did Not Feel Sorry for Themselves

Louis Braille, a blind French child, invented a way for blind people to read books.

Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain all never completed grade school.

Walt Disney was once fired for not having any good ideas.

Winston Churchill flunked sixth grade and was last in his college graduating class.

Elvis Presley flunked an audition for an amateur television show.

Abraham Lincoln lost more political elections than he won.

CLASSIFIEDS TO KEEP YOU DOWN

IN THE NEWS

NEWCOMERS NOT FEELING SORRY FOR THEMSELVES

CAVIAR, ALASKA

Just having moved from Contrary, Missouri, Elmo and Alberta Zottlebanger and their family have been rejected by their new community of Caviar, Alaska. When it was discovered that it was the presence of the new Zottlebangers that scared the salmon away, the citizens of Caviar sent the Zottlebangers away on a vacation to ruin the fishing-related businesses of their biggest competitor in Highbrow, Alaska.

When the Zottlebangers returned to Caviar, no one claimed to know them or even see them. At first the family was hurt. But Elmo is not one to think lowly of himself, and he soon proposed a lucrative deal with the town council. For a sum of a thousand a month, he and his family would move inland and live in Bear Hollow, Alaska. The town of Highbrow also agreed to give a thousand a month.

No, the Zottlebangers do not have a victim mentality.

And the fish are back.

The next issue was titled The How to Deal with Danger and Death and dealt with the 9/11 terrorists and is not posted on the website.

However, for those of you following Elmo and Alberta and their family, below is the material that was in that issue.

IN THE NEWS

SHOCKING NEWS ROCKS TOWN, HOSPITAL MAXED OUT

CONTRARY, MO

[Radio Alert!] This is K-WHAT?, your local finger on the pulse of Contrary, Missouri. Listen up! This here is BIG! Residents here are in shock. An Army medical tent to accommodate the overflow has been set up just outside the hospital emergency room. Newspapers were removed from newsstands and vending machines.

The Contrary newspaper got the shocking story from API and made the mistake of printing it. Locals stormed the paper, throwing rocks and yelling obscenities. They claimed it was a dirty, rotten hoax. (Oh, one of those?!)

The story came from Bear Hollow, Alaska, where ex-Contrary residents Elmo and Alberta Zottlebanger had just become symbols of courage for America's war on terrorism. This was so unbelievable that residents ran out of their homes to throw themselves off a cliff. Fortunately, this part of Missouri has no cliffs, so our neighbors had to throw themselves off the six-foot retaining wall at K-Mart. 88-year-old Madeline Whiskerbottom is the only tragedy, having broken her hiney.

It was reported that fourteen grissley bears entered the town of Bear Hollow and would not leave. They were hungry. And, when McDonalds ran out of Happy Meals, the residents knew they were in deep dew-do. (Note the disguise for those of you with prim-and-proper prissy lips.)

It was soon obvious that the bears were going to starve the residents by not letting them go to the grocery store or restaurants. And the Alaskan National Guard were all deployed at airports to catch would-be, non-bear terrorists.

But, then, just as all hope seemed to be lost, down the street came walking toward the grizzlies, bare-handed and full of courage – you guessed it – the whole bloomin' Zottlebanger family.

The fourteen terrible bears rose on hind legs, bared their teeth in ugly snarls, and sniffed. But, before they could even see the Zottlebangers coming around the corner, they fled the city whimpering. Whimpering! You heard me right. They were terrified.

Within hours the small town was overrun by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and every other huge news agency with a big budget. In response, the Zottlebangers gave a news conference.

When asked how they became so brave, they responded, "We practiced on salmon."