One painful truth that very few adults dare to pass on to their children or grandchildren.
At the end of his long life, my grandfather always remembered something disturbing.
A lesson that is constantly repeated in my life and the lives of others.
A few hours ago, I saw it again.
The case of the mysterious smoker
A few weeks ago, the neighbor on the first floor of our apartment building caught my mother’s and my attention as we walked outside.
He said, “Someone is throwing lit cigarettes into my yard.”
We politely explained that it had been more than five years since I smoked my last cigarette.
He added, “Well, I’ve seen you smoking”.
We didn’t want to argue. We went for our walk.
It got worse.
The neighbor not only accused me of throwing cigarettes in his yard, but he also did it with the rest of the residents of the building to get the truth and find the culprit.
He did not find the culprit, and the thing went to more, and in his yard began to appear yogurts, leftover food, papers, etc.
I assumed it would be some neighbor outraged at being wrongly accused, but no.
Mystery solved
A couple of days ago, while hanging out the laundry (I live on the 5th floor), I caught the neighbor’s wife emptying a yogurt on the bottom of the building’s backyard.
I thought about sending an anonymous note under the neighbor’s door to inform him that his wife was the culprit. I didn’t.
However, a few hours ago, I met my neighbor’s wife on the street, who must be in her 70s. And I said to her, “I know it’s you who fills the yard with shit.”
Far from blushing, the lady said, “I do it so that my jerk of a husband, an obsessive cleaner, will get screwed.”
My grandfather’s painful lesson.
The lady between confessed to me that she left shit in his yard, so he would think it was some neighbor, and he would spend the day investigating instead of after her all day because she couldn’t stand him anymore.
I didn’t judge the lady. And as I rode up in the elevator, I remembered my grandfather’s lesson, “Grandson, the ones who can hurt you the most are the ones closest to you.”
My grandfather had eight children, 16 grandchildren, and 5 or 6 great-grandchildren, and he knew there was always the seed of evil among all his offspring. And he did not stop loving us, but he was not fooling himself; he knew that he would receive the most significant emotional blows from his own.
“AG, whoever passes by on the street and knows nothing about you, has nothing against you. It is those who truly know you who have reason to harm you and the opportunity to do so.” — He always reminded me of the end of his life.
Application to your life
Dear reader, for someone to do you wrong, two things have to happen: occasion and opportunity.
- Occasion: the people who have something against you are the ones who have the chance to interact with you in your daily life: a co-worker, a brother jealous of your professional success, or an unhappy partner. The enemy is always closer than you think.
- Opportunity: It is not he who wants to offend but he who can. The words of a stranger will usually leave us indifferent. But the terms of a loved one can hurt us deeply. The opportunity to hurt us is a luxury few people can afford. And these people are usually part of one of our social circles, be it family, work, or friends.
Moral: before blaming your neighbors for your misfortunes, look in the backyard of your house; the person responsible is closer than you think 🙂
A virtual hug
AG
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