Sorting out Other People’s Piles
Last week I began my three-part series on sorting your shit out. This week, shitmasters-to-be, we will inspect what kind of shit goes into pile 2.
Pile 2: OPP, aka Other People’s Piles
I love this line from Spiderman: With great power, comes great responsibility.
We are blessed with the power of choice. And therein can also be the curse—because that means assmasters around us have that same power of choice, and their choices in life toileting practices may end up with their shit on our pile.
We’d like to protect ourselves from other people’s shit—and we can to a point if we make smart decisions about the people we choose to give power over our lives.
However, sometimes, we want to limit the shit we get from others by controlling them. Guess what? Doesn’t work. Why? Repeat after me: because you just can’t fix stupid. Or a lovely Polish saying I saw on Facebook: Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
“But I got this book off Amazon” or ”There’s this 12 step program” or “I have a life coach who..”
Great! How’s that working for you? Because I don’t see it working for the rest of us.
The BEST thing to do is to take their shit, and when possible, bring it back to them and point out, “ Excuse me. I believe you dropped your shit in my vicinity. I’m just letting you know that I’m handing it back to you.” And walk away.
Walk away? But-but-but-but! What if they won’t accept their shit back? Surely, they must be willing to take it back, or deal with it or SOMETHING before I let go of this shit?
Doesn’t matter. It’s not your shit anymore. Remember? You can’t fix stupid. It’s not your circus to run. These are not your monkey’s cages to clean. Those aren’t your monkey mookies.
The other person can ignore their shit, eat their shit, enter a modern art shit sculpture competition, widely proclaim it to have miraculously transformed to the newest celebrity perfume—it’s their shit to deal with as THEY please.
What if you can’t tell them, because you no longer have contact? Pretty much the same thing. Walk away. It’s not your pile.
But-but-but-but! How will they know they have this shit if I don’t tell them? Aren’t there receipts? Surely some form of shit-shifting documentation?
Hmmmmm. It’s shit, right? Shit smells. Chances are, the asshole who dumped their pile on yours did so because they couldn’t stand the reek in the first place. Chances are pretty high they already know they stink, otherwise they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to drop it in your lap. The bottom line is, it’s not your pile.
Having said that, I know it’s not easy. It IS be a process—you may need to inspect the length, depth, width and weight of this pile before you hand it over. You’ll have to ask yourself whether you need a doggie bag to pick it up to hand it over, or whether you need to rent a dumptruck to haul it out of here? As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can say it’s taken me a long time to be able to do that. The point is, as you’re measuring this out to get rid of it—the process is not for you to fall in love with it, or engage in some nostalgia over it.
You have your own piles to deal with. Thou shalt not indulge in shit envy.
Pile 2: OPP, aka Other People’s Piles
I love this line from Spiderman: With great power, comes great responsibility.
We are blessed with the power of choice. And therein can also be the curse—because that means assmasters around us have that same power of choice, and their choices in life toileting practices may end up with their shit on our pile.
We’d like to protect ourselves from other people’s shit—and we can to a point if we make smart decisions about the people we choose to give power over our lives.
However, sometimes, we want to limit the shit we get from others by controlling them. Guess what? Doesn’t work. Why? Repeat after me: because you just can’t fix stupid. Or a lovely Polish saying I saw on Facebook: Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
“But I got this book off Amazon” or ”There’s this 12 step program” or “I have a life coach who..”
Great! How’s that working for you? Because I don’t see it working for the rest of us.
The BEST thing to do is to take their shit, and when possible, bring it back to them and point out, “ Excuse me. I believe you dropped your shit in my vicinity. I’m just letting you know that I’m handing it back to you.” And walk away.
Walk away? But-but-but-but! What if they won’t accept their shit back? Surely, they must be willing to take it back, or deal with it or SOMETHING before I let go of this shit?
Doesn’t matter. It’s not your shit anymore. Remember? You can’t fix stupid. It’s not your circus to run. These are not your monkey’s cages to clean. Those aren’t your monkey mookies.
The other person can ignore their shit, eat their shit, enter a modern art shit sculpture competition, widely proclaim it to have miraculously transformed to the newest celebrity perfume—it’s their shit to deal with as THEY please.
What if you can’t tell them, because you no longer have contact? Pretty much the same thing. Walk away. It’s not your pile.
But-but-but-but! How will they know they have this shit if I don’t tell them? Aren’t there receipts? Surely some form of shit-shifting documentation?
Hmmmmm. It’s shit, right? Shit smells. Chances are, the asshole who dumped their pile on yours did so because they couldn’t stand the reek in the first place. Chances are pretty high they already know they stink, otherwise they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to drop it in your lap. The bottom line is, it’s not your pile.
Having said that, I know it’s not easy. It IS be a process—you may need to inspect the length, depth, width and weight of this pile before you hand it over. You’ll have to ask yourself whether you need a doggie bag to pick it up to hand it over, or whether you need to rent a dumptruck to haul it out of here? As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can say it’s taken me a long time to be able to do that. The point is, as you’re measuring this out to get rid of it—the process is not for you to fall in love with it, or engage in some nostalgia over it.
You have your own piles to deal with. Thou shalt not indulge in shit envy.