‘You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.’ This remark from Abraham Lincoln demonstrates a deep understanding of scepticism, human nature and the limitation of lies and deceit. The point is that sooner or later the people will figure it all out.
My late brother, Willie, (Bill in his professional career) was one of the good guys. A dedicated politician and public servant, he became one of the shrewdest judges of people I ever knew. Willie had some excellent words of summaries and advice. When somebody came forward presenting platitudes and promises; the Irish mayor of a Canadian city responded with; ‘don’t tell me – show me!’
An awful lot of people wade through life trying to pretend to be something that they are not – and very often this feeds into the jealousy gene. In the hope of raising themselves up, instead of embracing a work ethic, the focus is to pull down those they see doing better than they. They may get away with this façade ‘some of the time’, but in the final analysis the people cannot be fooled.
There is no such thing as the perfect person. We all have defects and individual weaknesses. A minority of people can overcome defects and change for the better – but unfortunately these are few and far between.
As we have mentioned here more than once, one of the beauties of the old traditional Irish pub was that everybody in the pub was accepted in that forum for being the way they were. That doesn’t mean that the people weren’t wary of the thief and the liar among them and this would regularly be summed up by some person saying; ‘he is the way God made him.’ That’s it … there are 8 Billion people in the world; no two are the same; they are what they are because they were either born that way or made that way.
Another brother of mine, Camillus, put it very succinctly when he remarked about a close relative; ‘you can’t blame a cripple for not being able to walk!’
But the people that Abraham Lincoln referred to, each living in their own community, know who is who and what is what. The human is the most complicated animal on the planet. Yes, and every last one of us, from pope to pauper has a ‘secret life’ – as in stuff we don’t want the people to know about. They say that if we could each read one another’s mind, no two people would be speaking to each other! Every person is a ‘mix’, but the mix is not equally proportioned.
Those who specialise in lies and negativities play to the smallest audience, because only people like themselves want to listen. ‘Begrudgers’, because they are so ridden with jealousy are the most unhappy group of all. Whilst the rest of the ‘average person on the street’ gets on with their work, their friends, and their leisure activity; the unfortunate fake folks engage with each other to ‘improve’ on the last lie one of them circulated.
Sadly we live in a time when spreading falsehoods seems to matter little. Even when found out, something like; ‘I wasn’t there, but that is what I was told’, is expected to clean the slate. But when the people hear who made it up in the first place …they know!
Ideally, you should totally ignore the bad stuff said about you; not easy, but remind yourself of the goodness and the fairness of the majority of people; ‘the people who cannot be fooled all of the time.’ The answer to being the object of targeted begrudgery is to continue just being yourself.
I think I told you previously of something I learned from Georgie Best in his book. (no, not how to kick a ball!) George was a troubled genius and overly sensitive regarding begrudgery. That was until one morning, lying in bed (probably with a hangover) it came to him that the reason he was being bad-mouthed was because they were jealous and knew they couldn’t be like him. That was the end of begrudgery bothering Best!
There are exceptions to every rule and for this reason a sprinkling of spiteful skelms will manage to evade Lincoln’s law, and ‘fool some of the people all of the time.’ You don’t worry, just be yourself and the people will know. Karma has a funny way of levelling the pitch – and if that fails, there is talk of a higher power and a judgment day!
Don’t Forget
The person who thought of putting the ‘S’ into ‘Fast Food’ is a marketing genius.
