Trevor

Zaphod

Jedi
So I got some time off work decorating and stuff. My wife and myself come out of Tesco and go back to the car - and I take the trolley back, I then run in to someone who says 'hey, how's (my workplace).. I didn't recognise him. I say' I'm sorry... do I recognise you?'.. So, predictably, given the title of the post, it's Trevor - but I spend at least a minute in conversation with this chap trying to put the image before me in to some kind of context. I know the name, but I don't recognise him.

I worked with him for about a year - and a recent one - but he was a cocky guy in muscle shirts who was constantly chasing the ladies. The man before me had a cap on, glasses and walking uncomfortably with a walking stick. He looked like an old man, despite the fact he's about half my age.

In all that conversation, I didn't ask him what had happened... How the hell he's gone from the chap I knew, to ending up with a walking stick and struggling to make his way around the trollies and in to Tesco.

You ever get the feeling you failed a life test? That a test comes by and you only see it afterwards?

Fail fail fail.. over and over.. jesus bloody wept, I have to do better than this
 
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Don't be too hard on you. It happened to me many years ago. I used to worked with a beautiful woman in a bookshop. Some time after that I saw her in a bus. She was totally different: from a beauty she was very fat, completely different, another woman, a woman that was suffering of something. I was so shocked that I almost did not recognize her, and I did not talk to her, shy in front of this change. If it was now, with a little more of experience maybe I would asked her what happened in her life. Surely she was taking some anti-depressants.

Your guy maybe now is sick, maybe with MS? Life is hard with some of us. It is difficult to accept this change, that people suffer illness, or live difficulties. It hurts. It make us vulnerable.
 
Thanks Loreta. I just think I coud have, and should have, done better than I did. Those tests always catch you when you're in a hurry or unawares, and focusing on other things. I know what I should have done - and it's not what I did

It's a test of who you are - when you're totaally off-balance and unprepared - what do you do..
 
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I worked with him for about a year - and a recent one - but he was a cocky guy in muscle shirts who was constantly chasing the ladies. The man before me had a cap on, glasses and walking uncomfortably with a walking stick. He looked like an old man, despite the fact he's about half my age.

You ever get the feeling you failed a life test?

It may not be you - who failed the life test?

He may have chased after the wrong girl and met up with a devoted boyfriend or husband ... and suffered "instant karma"?

Not all of our lessons - happen in slow motion!
 
As you are in this forum, there is a high probability that you want to help. Synchronism occurred and the meeting and conversation took place.

Now, you know this, the other part almost certainly not.

If you "force" the conversation towards "wisdom," it may not be the most appropriate.

You think you could have done better. Welcome to the "club".:-)

The mastery, in anything needs practice.

Just keep an eye on the "ball," and more "lessons" will emerge in that line.

Good thread
 
Some great answers, thank you. I think there's another aspect here as well. I'm not taking notice of the people I work with, until there is a 'work reason' to do so. I think about it, and there's probably 20% of the people in my office that I couldn't precisely put a name to. In my defence, there's a high turnover in that environment but some of the people I'm talking about have been there for multiple years. For me, work is work, but I'm not sure that statement stands up to critical analysis, since I spend so much of my waking life there. I'm sure this fact contributed to the situation with Trevor.

I don't think I much like where I am at, at this point - and that interaction did push it right in my face. Some much needed internal reflection and adjustment of course I think
 
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My late father met a new member at his local table tennis club. She was very good, and with him being the secretary, asked her if she wanted to join and play on a regular basis. She was delighted and so he went through the registration form with her. Turns out that she lived 2 doors down from him, had done for 20 years, 5 less than he and my mother had lived in their home. I remember him being appalled, not only at himself as he always thought he was an observant and friendly gent, but at our lives in general where the people who share our 'space' are generally blind to each other. I'm not diminishing how you or him felt, just maybe recognising that now more than ever we are up against so many obstacles and pit falls, it can leave one spinning, unable to focus. The beautiful thing is that you, and he, recognised it and did and will make moves to change.
 
My late father met a new member at his local table tennis club. She was very good, and with him being the secretary, asked her if she wanted to join and play on a regular basis. She was delighted and so he went through the registration form with her. Turns out that she lived 2 doors down from him, had done for 20 years, 5 less than he and my mother had lived in their home. I remember him being appalled, not only at himself as he always thought he was an observant and friendly gent, but at our lives in general where the people who share our 'space' are generally blind to each other. I'm not diminishing how you or him felt, just maybe recognising that now more than ever we are up against so many obstacles and pit falls, it can leave one spinning, unable to focus. The beautiful thing is that you, and he, recognised it and did and will make moves to change.


Thanks. I think the biggest lesson I take away for me is that staying out of people's lives is not a solution. Right, so you could argue that by staying out of people's lives, you don't do them harm - you don't manipulate them or hurt them or do any of those goddamn awful things that this site has talked so much about. And that's true, but at that point it's like you almost might not be on the planet at all - but there's the problem, you might as well not be, for all the diference you're making to anyone - and - if humanity needs anything right now; it's people making a positive difference.

All it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing in its presence, and I really believe that. But I haven't been living by it and I think one of the problems is that it's so easy to relegate evil to being 'big stuff'.. well, there's truth there but it always grows out of the small stuff.

It's so often the small stuff that's the root - like the stuff I've been regarding as inconsequential. But in feeling it's inconsequential, by implication I've been regarding other human beings as inconsequential - and that's a sharp, slippery slope. And so easy to slide on to.

Good lord
 
It's so often the small stuff that's the root - like the stuff I've been regarding as inconsequential. But in feeling it's inconsequential, by implication I've been regarding other human beings as inconsequential - and that's a sharp, slippery slope. And so easy to slide on to.
Yeah, that's why the old clichés are the best...smile at strangers, hold open a door, help an elderly person with their bags, small things that start the chain of positivity. And I think if a person frequents a site like this, they want to know how to not manipulate or harm, or keep those things in check, or even just recognise those traits in others. Keeping away for fear of causing harm is akin to splitting? I'm not sure.
 
Yeah, that's why the old clichés are the best...smile at strangers, hold open a door, help an elderly person with their bags, small things that start the chain of positivity. And I think if a person frequents a site like this, they want to know how to not manipulate or harm, or keep those things in check, or even just recognise those traits in others. Keeping away for fear of causing harm is akin to splitting? I'm not sure.

Right, that's what I'm seeing right now. I've been taking the coward's way out by disengaging with the entire situation. None of the answers are simple, and here's another one to add to the pile of complicated human issues - because disengagement amounts doing nothing, and doing nothing is just another road to hell
 
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