#2. The story drama tellers.
If intelligence and wisdom were planets, even if they belonged to the same solar system, they would be light-years apart.
And you realize this when you take the path between the two.
Intelligence is a means, although many cultivate it as an end in itself.
On the other hand, wisdom drinks from four sources: experience, pain, loss, and renunciation.
Drinking from these sources takes work (surely you know this).
That’s why people become spiritual, to make the process easier.
But the spiritual path is dangerous, full of people wanting to exploit your newfound goodwill.
Here are the three most dangerous types I have encountered along the way so that you can avoid them in time.
1. Machine slot persons.
These people first ask you for small favors and gradually increase in size and frequency.
Example:
Within a week of realizing you have started your spiritual conversion process, someone says to you…..
“Hey, lend me five bucks; I’ll pay you back on Monday.”
Six months into your spiritual walk, that same person says…
“I have a problem. My boss won’t pay me, can you lend me 500 for rent. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get paid.”
A year later…
“I have a job interview, but it is in another city, and I need money for the trip. Can you give me a hand? With what I get, I’ll pay you back everything I owe you”.
And so on, ad infinitum, without giving you anything back. Or almost nothing.
Like slot machines, these people sometimes give you a consolation prize (giving you back a tiny part of what they owe you) so that you continue to trust them.
2. The story drama tellers
This type of person is looking for three things: your energy, your time, and, above all, your attention.
And to get them, they will always use the same strategy,
- They will ask you for advice about something.
- You, being good at it, will give it to them.
- They will tell you that your advice doesn’t work for them.
- You’ll go crazy, wondering what’s going wrong. And you’ll become obsessed with helping them.
- Eventually, you’ll discover that something smells rotten in Denmark.
- You’ll pull at the thread and find they have not listened to your advice.
They just wanted your attention.
They just wanted you to listen to their miseries, to feed their ego and their narcissism.
These people love to be the center of attention, even if they must lead a soap opera life.
So be careful, because these people will make you doubt even yourself. And you will end up thinking that your advice is worthless.
Don’t let these people destroy your faith. Your advice doesn’t work for them because they DON’T WANT IT TO WORK FOR THEM.
Remember that.
3. The curiosity dealers
If there were a university to become a professional manipulator, the curiosity dealers would graduate Summa Cum Laude.
Beware of them. They have the power of seduction hyper-developed.
They know all the tricks: flashing, generating guilt, being charming, feigning innocence.
They usually pretend to be weak, so you lower your guard and believe there is no danger.
But there is. And a lot of it.
And if you fall into their traps, you are lost.
Whatever method they use, they always appeal to your curiosity, to make you want to know more and more about them.
And knowing more will cost you time, money, and energy.
These people use your goodness against you.
To do so, they fake they want to keep you from what is happening to them so that you will be the one to get involved.
To make you think it was your idea to help them.
So if you get curious about someone who needs help but says they don’t, be careful, or you will end up trapped in their web.
Don’t let the seductive spiders that trade in curiosity trap you.
A virtual hug
AG
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