A couple of things struck me today and I was taken back a little by them. I have always known that people, in general, cannot be trusted. People do not stick to their word and for the most part people do not even try to. But as I meet new people and talk to them I find that picking out the lip service that people give is a lot easier than it used to be. The ability to think about something that someone says and realize that they do not mean it or that they will not stick by it is, to me at least, a gift. Well, it is a gift that can also be a burden to say the least.
As I move through school and encounter new situations I think that I learn a lot about people. Some of it is good things, while the majority is things I would much rather ignore or not even know about in the first place. People are fake when they want to be and when it suits their needs. However, when it suits their needs those same people become as real as possible. Is every person guilty of that? No. But I do think a majority of us do it on some level or another. Whether we are trying to make someone mad, frustrate someone, make them happy, or ignore them, we all tend to lean toward not being ourselves to accomplish our “goals”.
We say things that we do not really mean or the exact opposite, we say things that we mean but turn around and deny that. I truly believe that people will, no matter what the consequences are upon others, say or do things that fit their wants and there is no real way to get around it. Is it a learned behavior? I do not know but I think that it stems from people’s own personal self-interest