If you have lived in this world for any substantial amount of time I am quite you've heard these lines before.......
"You can trust me, I'm not like all of the other guys!"
"You know me all these years, I wouldn't ever think of harming you!"
"You know I'm a good person, did you see the favor that I did for so and so?"
"Don't you know that I'm an Elder in the church? That gossip that you are hearing about me could never be true!"
It doesn't matter if a person is unlike all of the others.!
It matters not how long you were an acquaintance with someone!
The good deeds that a person may have done publicly doesn't reflect the well hidden deviant motivations held deep within their heart!
So many of us are fooled most of the time by the dignified and decent looking outward appearance that an individual may fraudulently present to the world.
And why shouldn't we be fooled? I mean, we've been taught from birth to trust what we "see" for the most part, and I am not saying that we were taught to trust strangers. But eventually we begin to see through the unwise habit of freely trusting a situation after being burned a few times!
We find out quick how the chameleons in the world have learned to to manipulate the outward appearances and use the instant trust that you've given up so easily as a deadly scam on your soon to be modified judgment.
You have absolutely no way to judge on sight who may be sincere in their intentions or not. So in order to protect yourself, you have to adopt and develop certain ingrained automatic practices that will greatly reduce the chances of some wayward entity from manipulating their way into your inner circle and taking advantage of their new found proximity in your life.
And what precautions can we take to make sure we don't get taken for a ride? Well since I am human just like you and therefore don't have the divine authority to preach, I'd rather share my perspective with you on a few points concerning this subject right off the top of my head randomly because there are so many different scenarios that it would be impossible to cover them all in the short space of this blog.
We can go a few ways with this, I could attack this subject from a spiritual perspective as I prefer to do and will in another blog but will focus on the downright straight basic commandments that a person of ANY background and culture or spiritual persuasion could understand. Why am I doing it this way today? Well, let's put it this way, if you had a really bad thunderstorm going on outside with dangerous lightning dropping, you wouldn't suggest at that time that your house guests take a nice long stroll outside to fly a kite high in the sky made with copper threads!
Danger is danger regardless to the fact that your guests may be a mixed group consisting of Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and Christians. Tell insist that they stay inside and not venture out is about as effective as the BEST prayer at that point! LOL! Understand where I'm coming from with this....?
Okay.......
You do not have to be a victim from the meddling of others in your life if you do not want them to. Does anyone really WANT to be meddled with? I think not! But sometimes a person can enter your life in a seemingly innocent way only to be revealed down the road as a person who is nine months pregnant with a load of drama that they are about to drop on you 'cause they just went into labor!
So here are my personal commandments for making it hard for just about anyone who has committed within themselves to bringing the drama. I say make them WORK for it! LOL!
Guard Information On Your Movements & Whereabouts:
Never let a stranger and most of your acquaintances know your goings and comings 24/7. When they know your common path then they can lay in wait ON that path to do you in! I remember last November 2008, when my home was being scoped for a home invasion, a young lady continued over a period of weeks to knock on my door to ask for my step daughter who had always by this time left for school. This young lady acted as though she was a friend of my step daughter and only came by to offer her a ride to school. But it was obvious that if she was her friend she WOULD know her schedule at least! Especially if they were attending the SAME SCHOOL, wouldn't you think?
Well she always came by in a white pickup truck, the same pickup truck that had been parked outside all different times of the night and day forcing me to take a mental note of this. Anyway, one morning she came by again around 9:40 one Monday morning, she knocked and rang the bell as usual but THIS time I did NOT answer!
Deep down I knew what was about to go down, she knocked harder and harder, the bell rang more than I ever heard it ring before! She was trying to see if anyone was home. Who was I to disappoint her and break up the party by answering the door? I sat back and enjoyed the rhythmical drumbeat performed not only on my front door, but on the sides AND back doors after an unkempt gold tooth wearin' saggin pants (Does this barbaric manner of garb really SURPRISE you?) poorly kept dread having THUG exited the pickup truck to join her in the concert!
My trap was set because I had the upper hand and was a step ahead of THEIR game! They banged the doors for the next 20 minutes, giving me the time to call the police, give a DETAILED description of these two, their approximate height, their approximate weight, what they wore, their vehicle as well as the OTHER young lady who sat in the getaway pickup truck outside! Dang! I might have had time for a day spa pedicure if I had so desired!
Well, I advised the authorities that they might want to step up their arrival time to my premises because if they took any longer, they would have to also bring an ambulance and body bags if these clowns broke inside with me here. They were warned. They broke the screen door lock and began to enter in the sun porch in the back, they checked the first sliding door to see if it was left ajar, then the second one.
As they approached the third sliding glass door, I realized that my athletically socked feet would not allow me the traction for the potential scuffle at hand. So in quickly opening the garage door to retrieve my work boots, I inadvertently triggered the door chime which alerted my guests to the fact that someone was home and laying in wait for them. They swiftly took off and found themselves only two blocks away before being greeted happily by eight police vehicles! LOL!
I went into detail to get to this point: These knuckleheads knew SO MUCH about me, my family, what we do and where we go! They revealed what they knew in an attempt to convince the police that they really were friends of ours and were just coming by for a visit! Yeah RIGHT! With 17 potential charges of OTHER home burglaries on record? I think not!
As paranoid as I actually am, I thought I had my bases covered as far as moving about in the world in a discreet and covert manner but I was wrong. A hard pill to swallow indeed. This didn't have to be about coming to steal a few items, this could have been an attempt on my LIFE! So WATCH your movements. Keep them staggered. Watch who is around when you are discussing you private plans and business and STOP drawing unwanted attention to yourself!
Slip through the cracks and go unnoticed.........
Make sure when you leave your home that there is no one around to make a note of the times that you enter and exit. If so, remember who THEY are! I keep a small digital camera on my hip at ALL times and if I see anything suspicious, I will take a MOVIE while I drive by to go where I am going of this entity. It might be nothing, but if it turns out to BE something of note, then I am covered.
Sometimes it's a very healthy thing to tell EVERYONE that you know that you will be out of town overnight and park your car out of sight if you do not have an enclosed garage. Enjoy your new found peace of mind and don't answer your phone, cellphone nor go online! Keep 'em guessing! Even your trusted family can sabotage you if they can't keep a secret or talk a bit too loud in public about YOUR plans. So if there is something that you are doing that you DO NOT want to become public knowledge then TELL NO ONE BUT GOD!
Common Friends & Acquaintances, Know Who Talks To Who!
Friends may have good intentions and not want to bring you any harm but their loose lips will definitely sink your ship if THEY are not careful with YOUR business! Now the way to avoid this is to not tell them ANYTHING AT ALL! But we both know that it is literally impossible to live in this manner, you HAVE to tell somethings some of the time, so what's the next best thing to do? Know the GOSSIP CHAIN HIERARCHY! Know how the process works of who says what to who!
This can be used in reverse to your benefit.
I remember when I was planning to move out of New York to here in the South and really did not feel to tell many of my two faced neighbors a damn thing about my move because they would have been trying to sabotage my efforts and probably would try to throw a rock in my plans for selling my house. You see, I will admit it now but I had a few illegal renovations done that would NOT have been approved (Therefore halting the sale of my house!) by the buildings inspector and I didn't feel like taking the time and spending the money on changing them especially when the few jealous neighbors would have made that phone call to the city to let them know that I have two illegal apartment on the premises. The buyer WANTED it the way it was, so no problem.
But I was smart enough to to be proactive in putting out the word by many of my neighbors acquaintances that I would be giving away the contents of my home to a younger cousin that lived out of state who was fresh out of college and just purchased a home! LOL!
So when I pulled up in the moving truck and emptied my furniture, these nosy neighbors didn't even ASK me what was going on because they felt they already knew! Not that they would have asked ME directly anyway, because I later found out after moving to Florida that they really wanted to see what new things that I was going to purchase for my home not knowing that it would be the last time that they would ever see me! I avoided the potential damage that gossip could have cause by stopping my home sale and gained some peace while moving away from the haters! KNOW THE GOSSIP CHAIN AND USE IT IN REVERSE!
Never React:
This pretty much says it all in those two words! Never react! What do I mean? Well, you reveal so much of what you are all about and what you have inside by RE-acting to an external stimulus thrown at you to gauge your mindset. Many covert enemies will throw a statement or a word at you to see what you will say or how you react and what you do in RESPONSE to what they do will begin to give them the feedback to see what your mindset is.
They may even dress up their covert attack to appear as though it is out of concern: "Is everything alright? I've noticed that you are dropping lots of weight, we both know that you have been working hard, do you need me to loan you any money?"
IT'S A TRAP!
The person making the statement doesn't care about you! They don't even want to LOAN you any money! They spoke of you losing weight, working hard and your possible need for money. They threw several things at you at once hoping to confuse you into reacting to what they said so you can give an indication into the happenings of your personal life.
The wrong answer would be: Yes, I have been losing weight from working all of this overtime since my husband lost his job last month, I wouldn't mind a loan right now but he would get very angry with me if I took money from you, you know, it's a manhood thing!"
NOW!
The person asking those questions just hit pay dirt because you didn't understand what the goal was in "appearing" as a good person and acting so concerned! Not only that, if she is the gossipy type, she will spread it all over and add something to it that you never even said.
Now here would be HER version of your statement that she would spread while quickly getting on the cellphone after leaving your side: "Girl, there is TROUBLE in paradise! I just spoke to "so and so"(Insert your name!) and she told me that her husband cussed her out and said that she better get out there and work TWICE as hard to make up for what he wasn't getting from the job that he just lost! So she is looking so haggard, gaunt and withered from all that forced overtime while he sits at home threatening her by saying that she better not make him look bad by taking any handouts from your friends!
The proper way to answer would be to keep your response as vague, open ended and as brief as possible. Even admitting to some of the things that she mentioned in her statement but shifting the blame and reason FOR those conditions. And while I am not telling you to lie, I AM telling you to severely bend the truth now proactively to offset the drama that can manifest down the road in time if you handle it with a bit more awareness!
The proper answer might be: Yes my friend, I have been losing some weight and HAVE been doing lots of overtime, but I really want to help my mother's church reach its building fund goals before years end and I feel that this is the right thing to do. Would you like to join me and maybe make a donation since you offered to help? I am so blessed to have such a concerned individual in my life such as yourself!
By shrewdly answering in this manner, you have put your snake on her defenses, you didn't reveal your true reasons for working the overtime. You made yourself look good by having such a noble goal, and you didn't share any specific information about the inner workings of your household and the fact that your husband lost his job. This snitch is on their defenses because the money that they were so eager to loan doesn't exist now (Not that it existed a few moments ago either! LOL!) as they are quickly trying to find a way OUT of giving up that previously offered loan because they won't have any advantage over you in giving it!
Always think before you RE-act, never be steered or railroaded into revealing ANYTHING that you don't want to share with ANYONE! It's YOUR business and NO ONE has the right to be all up in it unless you CHOOSE for them to be!
This blog got so good to me that I didn't want to end it prematurely, come back later tonight to see the completed version. Let me know what you think thus far...
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