Tough Decisions
People face tough decisions every day in a wide array of scenarios. It may relate to health, business, relationships or money. Should the aggressive cancer treatment be undertaken despite the risks? How many people should be trimmed now the business has been taken over? Do we send in troops against the enemy on foreign soil? Do I give her another chance despite her infidelity? Does this blue or pink shirt look better? President Obama explained that by the time a matter was referred to him for an outcome there was no easy decision.
This is because people are troubled by conscience. A conscience is that thing which causes you to frame your own decisions as if someone was watching what you are doing or thinking, even though you are alone. People make decisions tougher than they need be because they are worried how people will react, how it will make that person look in front of others, how it will impact on other people and whether they will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t. These considerations do not trouble my kind and me.
My kind and me receive a lot of bad press about the things we say and do. Of course you will not be holding your breath in the expectation of some kind of apology because that is just not going to happen. I do know however that you are a reasonable person who looks at matters in a balanced and fair-minded fashion (it is just that I tell everyone else that you are crazy harpy who is out of control). With that in mind, you really ought to give thanks for people like me because we can be relied on to make the tough decisions that have to be made.
For example, imagine there is a redundancy situation in your department and in one particular team four people are at risk of losing their jobs. Two positions have to go and one of your friends is in this pool of individuals at risk. How would you go about deciding who is selected for redundancy and who is not? That part of you that is dedicated to fairness and the correct way of doing things would decide that a prescribed selection criteria should be applied to all four who are at risk. You would apply scores for each person to the criteria and the two lowest would be then selected for redundancy. The empath in you knows however your friend will face serious financial consequences if he lost his job now, notwithstanding the redundancy package. You also fear you will lose your friendship if he is made redundant. You agonise over what you should do. Should you apply the scores fairly and then be beyond reproach in the event of a legal challenge to the decision but risk losing your friend and causing him severe problems? Alternatively, should you massage the scores bumping up a couple of his and reducing a couple of someone else’s? Who would know if it is just a few points difference? What about speaking to the head of the department and trying to save one of the jobs so there is only one casualty? In such a scenario you know your friend will be safe as one of the candidates is poor at his job and is nailed on to be chosen. I know that you would face quite a dilemma in trying to make this decision and ultimately you would probably pass it on to someone else citing a conflict of interest.
What about me? What would I do? Would I apply the criteria and the poorest two lose out? After all, surely we want the best employees and if there is dead wood it needs to be cut out irrespective of any friendship that may exist? Would I instead apply my own criteria of who will provide me with the best fuel in this office dynamic and allow that to influence the supposed objective scoring? Would I make the decision that suits me the best and then reverse engineer the situation to give it the veneer of legitimacy? I should imagine that you will be inclined to think that I would do the latter. If so, you would be wrong.
I would fire all four. Their work would be distributed to other people in the department on the basis that they would receive a small bonus if they achieve certain targets. The business makes a greater saving by losing the foursome and four other employees become very grateful to me, thus giving me plenty of fuel, as a consequence of this incentive. I then contact two of the four and explain that if they bide their time I will ensure they can be re-hired in a few months’ time, before the pay-off has been depleted and thus they will actually find themselves in a better position. I will recruit those two in the new financial year so the previous year’s savings remain good. The re-hired individuals will be eternally grateful to me, ensuring loyalty and further fuel, plus I shall ensure they become my lieutenants as repayment for me looking out for them. The hold I have over my higher-up will ensure the recruitments go through without incident and are done outside of the time allowed for the two who remain out in the cold to bring a tribunal claim.
What about the friend in all of this? Who cares? He should have fuelled me more and he might have been saved. As it is, I have found some new friends who are ever so grateful for my largesse and who are perfectly content to propagate my explanation that the friend was released as a consequence of some behaviour that cannot be expanded on but let us say is outside the range of normative behaviours of decent people in society. When the friend comes calling to vent his spleen at me, well his anger and insults are all good fuel aren’t they?
The way you are wired causes you to make decisions tough.
We, by contrast, make the tough decisions.
You really ought to thank us.
12 thoughts on “Tough Decisions”
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It is very hard and difficult for me to understand.
on the one hand you gain fuel when someone is angry with you and offends you.
But on the other hand when someone criticize you it makes you feel wounded and you are angry and vengeful and you try to destroy the other person. Why do you take revenge on someone who gives you fuel you should be happy that someone doesn’t like you and criticize you.
Maybe you do it to gain even more fuel when you start to destroy this person and see how he or she breaks down mentally.
Maybe you want to have control over all people and when someone criticizes you, you are afraid that it will destroy your reputation, so you prefer to destroy his or her reputation first?
You are satisfied with the hatred of other people because it provides the fuel you need, but on the other hand you are afraid that it may destroy your public image.
Because if everyone liked you, you would not have fuel delivered by the negative emotions of other people. But on the other hand, such negative emotions create a threat that people may see that you are actually a different person than you present yourself?
Kat and HG. you both are so fun to read in the discussions!!!! Ok ok I believe you!! There were anyway many people rejecting the writting but the editor of EJ seems to be a positivist like me… And Kat he is not a new man.. Its just his attitude after several breakup which is new but lets see what happens…time will tell what happens and we will be able to make a sound conclusion… Hopefully it will not be my shattered heart and HG being right all the time… Ill keep you updated. ☀️☀️
Nikita,
My apologies, I got the impression that he was new and not a repeat.
Here’s the thing though, I really like you. You have a heart of gold and a great sense of humour and nothing charms me more than that.
That’s why I’m telling you that I highly doubt he has changed. New attitude just tells me he has changed up the game.
He knows you well enough to know what you want to hear.
“I miss you. I miss your beautiful smile, the way your eyes light up, your voice, your silky skin…
I miss lying in bed and talking to you. Holding your hand in mine.
I miss your beautiful soul.
Everything just seems so pointless and empty without you. You are my light in this world.
I know we had our differences, but I have been doing a lot of thinking.
I love you so much. You are the most important thing in my life…
Please, let me show you how much you mean to me. Please…”
Does that sound vaguely familiar?
Or has he figured out that he needs to up the game to keep you around? There are only so many times we can deliver that type of speech, our eyes shining with sincerity, before it starts falling on deaf ears, after all.
You know the tricks we pull. Even if we somehow manage to curb or channel our most destructive urges, we are still no picnic to be with.
Setting firm boundaries is a must with us. But we always take it as a challenge and butt up against your boundaries, searching for and exploiting any weaknesses, using all the tools in the Devil’s Toolbox we need.
Sometimes it’s not even fully conscious. We just can’t help it. Doesn’t mean it causes any less damage or hurts you any less though.
It’s exhausting just thinking about it, isn’t it? That part never changes.
Henry Rollins sums it up pretty well:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awY1MRlMKMc
Hi Kat
Thanks for your words and the link. I also like you very much and love it when you comment. Never miss them. Youre sincerity, humor and intelligence also charm me alot 😃😃.
What you pointed out about all the lovely words I did have in the beggining… It all started with incredible lovebombing and the most amazing sex and I was totally hooked but nevertheless ended by breaking up because his words were too harsh and the critics never ended.. And did come back and broke up again
To make a long story short. I dont know if he changed the game or really the attitude.
We did put our flaws on the table. He did tell me that he could not love me the way i love him and that he is a mean guy and he cant change it but he did make this training on communication and does not exploit my weaknesses anymore. He also forces me to tell him when I feel ge is too dominant or my words not listeend to, or he is being not warm and unempathic. Its anyway not easy and I know Narcs never change but We are having at the moment such a nice time and Im so much in love that I have decided to learn from this blog and HGs books and wait and see how it develops.
If its the attitude that chamged I think I can live with it … I dont know…. But thanks to this blog I think I have gathered enough knowledge not to end up destroyed…
Could not really leave right now and anywayat the moment he would not let me go neither not even for a pause so Im living the love I feel day by day and waiting for a miracle? I dont know what I wait for Kat… I just know my heart wants to stay.
Let me send you a big hug.
You are pretty impossible 😱😱😱
I dont know if it worked! And Im not sure its a hoover!!! 😱😱. Im sure a narc can accept he or she is a narc and polish the corners to go along not hurting the peoole! The writting causedso much hassel of people angry because it had been published. It came accompanied by a publishers note ” in elephant we publish the good and the bad”
Enjoy your weekend in peace ☀️☀️
Of course it worked!
The letter reeks to high hell of self serving, emotionally manipulative bullshit. The ones who were outraged sensed that and saw where it was leading.
But I’m willing to bet that for every one of them, there was at least one “spiritual empath” offering endless praise and support to her and trying to silence the outraged. It’s Elephant Journal after all…she published it there for a good reason.
Whatever the reactions, she is lapping it up. Using them to manipulate, triangulate and obtain more suckers and more fuel.
People absolutely love to be part of a “success story” like hers and hate being proven wrong, so if she plays it well, she could get away with more than ever now.
I have seen plenty of these “Jesus/Yoga/Joseph Campbell healed my narcissism” gurus. Without a fail, they were either not really changed at all, just learned better manipulation techniques…or they were not really narcissists to begin with and simply told a little lie for want of attention and validation for their misguided cause of healing narcissists with their own brand of spirituality.
And yes, it is possible to recognise some of our less beneficial behaviours and make some changes. I’m living proof of that, as are several others I know. But I have never heard of a narcissist ridding of those urges like that.
I think you so badly want to believe it is possible because of your new man, that it is blinding you to the truth of who we really are, Nikita.
Wish you a wonderful weekend too.
I will leave it to Joseph Goebbels to sum up, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
HG
We cant make tough decision and even sometimes making any decision is difficilt enough so if we should thank you for it for what are you going to thanks us for ???
Below one of your kind .. A woman did it.
Found it in elephant journal
~
Dear Empath,
We make a great pair you and I.
I have a big broken hole inside of me, and you fill a lot of it, when you are giving and seeing your love and care light up others. Even though I don’t have a lot to give in return—I loved receiving what you have. At least until I woke up to it.
I was the narcissist.
I didn’t know I was the narcissist—I was just really unhappy with my life, and I was looking for that exact right thing that would fill the hole.
When I met a gentle and loving person, they gave me a great lift and made me feel wonderful, I just didn’t have it in me to return the favour—even though I actually did want to. Eventually, the emptiness in me would return, and I would question the value of the relationship I was in and start looking for a new lift. I didn’t do this consciously, but I did do it.
I was empty and disconnected inside, and I used my ex-husband in the way that all the current literature on narcissists describes. I thought it was justified when I raged at him, but really I was quite abusive. I left him when I wasn’t getting what I needed anymore. He hates me now, and that is his right.
I was narcissistic in my career too. I used jobs and prestige to fill the void as well. I only ever really lasted about nine months in a job, before I needed to move on when the good feelings wore off and it got boring. I lied and burned people quite often to get what I wanted too.
It wasn’t until I went through the horrible “use-and-abuse” cycles too many times that I lost everything, and it dawned on me that it was me. I entered a 12-step program to deal with addiction, and in doing the steps fearlessly and thoroughly, it requires us to be truly honest with ourselves.
I had to look at the resentments and the fears that I have—and then, painfully—I had to look at my part in it. In sobriety I have started to reconnect with myself and found life started to present me with other people, just like me, over and over—and this time I was on the receiving end. It held a mirror up to me, and it was ugly.
On behalf of all narcissists, I want to say that: I’m sorry.
I’m sorry that we take your light to feed ourselves, and we don’t give anything back. I’m sorry that we confuse you and make you vulnerable. Its cold comfort—but we hurt too—and eventually our ways come back to bite us, because you just can’t go through life using people without it catching up to you.
The thing is we don’t mean to hurt you—we just don’t actually realise that we are. I was just trying to get through the world in a way that made it bearable for me to manage the emptiness inside.
Now I know that my worth and connection will not come from what I take from others either in relationships or career. I know now that I need to find ways to feed myself, so that I can give and receive in all areas of my life with others. Being on the receiving end has shown me how bad it can get, just by seeing the consequences—both for me and also for them—as they keep spinning on in the use and abuse cycle.
Thank you for bringing the love and kindness to the world. Don’t let interactions with us dull your light—eventually we will catch up. (I hope.)
With love and respect,
a Recovering Narcissist
Thanks for sharing that Nikita. You know, I still have not been paid for writing that letter for that narc as part of a Grand Hoover she was engaged in. Do you think it worked?
Dear Empaths,
Recently I read an article from a recovering narcissist that inspired me to embrace light and love and forever change my life.
In my quest to be honourable and true, I will admit that in the past I have lied, cheated, manipulated, triangulated, callously played with people’s emotions and ruined careers, relationships and lives. For my own amusement and gain.
I have begun practicing yoga and reading Joseph Campbell. I am now ready to accept responsibility for everything bad I have done and solemnly vow to strive and live up to the ideals of love, truth and beauty in all aspects of my life.
As empaths, you have always held onto the idea that people like me: the abusers you still love even as they destroy your soul, or hate with a burning passion because of the magnitude of their betrayals, can see the errors of our ways and finally become the loving, empathetic creatures you want us to be. Who will keep the promises we made in the beginning and give you the fairy tale love you deserve.
I am here to tell you what you would happily give a king’s ransom and a kidney to hear. And I swear upon everything I hold holy that this time it is sincere.
I join my sister Recovering Narcissist in her quest and will too enlist the support of Elephant Journal in spreading this inspirational tale of redemption.
The endless praise I shall undoubtedly receive will serve as testament to your goodness and kindness.
The new chances and opportunities everyone, including those who had finally had enough of my abuse, will give me, are proof of true forgiveness and love conquering all.
The encouragement, understanding and inspiration I will receive in place of tears, scorn or punishment, even when I occasionally slip up and revert to my sadistic, manipulative ways, will continue to be a glorious shining beacon in the darkness we will battle. Together.
My transformation is a monument to the power of your unwavering love and forgiveness.
I am certain it will inspire others like me. Your goodness, dear empaths, is a hand reaching into the abyss to save those many think are beyond redemption.
From the depths of my healing heart, I thank you!
Lol!!
Nikita, you know I love you and your limitless optimism, but trust Elephant Journal to publish this inspirational bullshit.
And kudos to “Recovering” Narcissist for keeping the fairy tales flowing and making hoovering and abusing people easier for us.
Maybe I’ll show that article to a couple of my exes and “confess” that I wrote it 😀
Remember Kat I have the copyright on that article!
I agree that the way we are wired make decisions tough. Oh…to be wired differently.