Deceitful Amigo

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I once had a good friend pledge for a fraternity.

During my freshman year, I was anti fraternity and had no interest in it.

So decided to let him go through the experience and tell me how it went.

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A few weeks passes by & I can tell he is very ingrained in the process.

He never says what they do during pledging.

But always implies that he is the hardest worker in their line.

'I carry this whole line on my back bro...'

Week after week, he looks to be getting more tired.

Walking slower.

Eyes bloodshot.

And always yawning.

Clearly the process is taking a toll on him.

After a few grueling months, the moment has arrived.

He is officially a member.

Looked like all the work was worth it.

'So? What's the big deal about this story?'

Well, after his initiation, I learned something new.

Here's the plot twist.

Apparently, my friend wasn't a hard worker at all.

Quite the contrary.

By the time he crossed, a lot of his fraternity brothers would always rib him.

Said he wasn't active & that he was always injured.

Pretty much did the least work in the whole line & had everyone else picking up the slack.

This was pretty surprising considering I had been led to believe the opposite.

But there were 10 plus people who all said that my friend had been lazy.

Who should I believe?....

The title of this article was "Deceitful Amigo."

But here's the twist.

Whether or not he was deceitful is completely subjective.

I've known this fellow for some time & know he exaggerates.

In his world, he may have been working hard with the minimal effort that he put in.

In his fraternity brothers world, he was a lazy sack of shit.

This is is called a social gray area.

Gray areas make the social world more complex because it requires you to use your judgment.

Judgment is matured common sense.

And remember, common sense ain't all that common....

If I were to tell you 1 + 1 = 5, then it seems like a blatant lie.

Black and white issue, right?

Wrong. Look closer.

Did I maliciously lie to you or am I simply an idiot who can't do basic math?

Hm...

Questions like this seem very minuscule when you think about it on 1 on 1 terms.

But imagine if you are in a business deal & someone is telling you something which seems factually inaccurate.

Now the stakes are higher.

Evaluating the intent has become much more important.

The more your social circle expands with friends, acquaintances, assistants etc, the more complex your system becomes.

The more complex your system becomes, the more you need to stay aware of the basics.

And one of the basic is judgment.

However, judgement is born thru experience.

Experience is born through a lot of errors & some wins sprinkled in.

If you were to ask my younger self whether or not my friend was lying, I'd say 'yea, seems like it.'

But nowadays, I'd say 'it depends. Let me ask some more questions.'

The social world is very gray.

You'll discover black and white frameworks in relation to your life.

But there will be times when you are having a hard time evaluating.

In situations like those, actively try to look at life thru the lens of all parties involved.

Check their personality type, lying track record, tamed ego or not, impulsiveness etc.

'Whoa bro, that sounds like a lot of work!'

So did driving.

But the more you practiced, the more the steering wheel, accelerator, looking at the road and using turn signals came into alignment.

The social world is the same homie.

Practice & watch the variables slowly align.

That's how you get judgement.

Till tomorrow

Trilston 💲



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