I truly do not understand...
Actually, I never have understood. Why do people resort to threats such as "If you do ____ you will no longer be a member of this family" or "I won't love you anymore if you do _____" or "If you do _____ you will no longer be my friend"? To me these seem so meaningless. Though it's been a while, I've heard the first two several times in my life, and the latter a few times. When I hear them I simply slip into a numb state of being--a place where nothing can reach me, touch me, or hurt me. These threats rarely have the effect on me that the issuer is hoping for. They do not make me double think or regret the action I am considering taking. Instead they make me wonder what value the issuer places on our shared family, love or friendship. And what hurts is not the threat, but the realization that someone I care about and trust may not value our family, love or friendship as much as I do, and perhaps not at all.
A threat can never take family away from me. You can disown me, but you cannot take away my blood or my heritage, or my love for the members of my clan. A threat cannot take love away. You can deny me your love, but that does not mean that I will abandon my care for you. A threat can never take my friendship away. You can leave our friendship behind, but I will still consider you friend, and still care about you as I always have. In other words, I am in control of my own feelings, my own life. I have the free agency to choose. No one else can take the reins from me unless I allow them to.
I've often wondered why people threaten at all. In my experience, which granted is slight compared to that of the rest of the world's population, most threats could be replaced by a simple request. "Please don't do that, and why you would prefer they didn't". Discussion is a better solution, I think. Threats are a last resort, or a means of voicing something you do not actually mean, when your mind cannot come up with the words you truly want to say. Threats are an emotional reaction. For the most part they should probaby be ignored, and the person who issued them should be given the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of your forgetfulness. They probably did not mean to say what they said.
I guess this is one of those situations where the cliche "forgive and forget" just might apply.
A threat can never take family away from me. You can disown me, but you cannot take away my blood or my heritage, or my love for the members of my clan. A threat cannot take love away. You can deny me your love, but that does not mean that I will abandon my care for you. A threat can never take my friendship away. You can leave our friendship behind, but I will still consider you friend, and still care about you as I always have. In other words, I am in control of my own feelings, my own life. I have the free agency to choose. No one else can take the reins from me unless I allow them to.
I've often wondered why people threaten at all. In my experience, which granted is slight compared to that of the rest of the world's population, most threats could be replaced by a simple request. "Please don't do that, and why you would prefer they didn't". Discussion is a better solution, I think. Threats are a last resort, or a means of voicing something you do not actually mean, when your mind cannot come up with the words you truly want to say. Threats are an emotional reaction. For the most part they should probaby be ignored, and the person who issued them should be given the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of your forgetfulness. They probably did not mean to say what they said.
I guess this is one of those situations where the cliche "forgive and forget" just might apply.
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