Suffering and broken promises

For me, life is a struggle. Nothing has ever some easy and I wasn't given any privileged wealthy parents or grand parents to pay for everything in life. While I'm sure this is the majority as only the top 10% or 1% of the population would be so lucky.

I can say that having been born into meager means did teach me the value of effort, of spending a summer afternoon and evening chopping firewood to get a hefty meal at the end.

I grew up without any neighbors or friends my age until middle school. So it was hard for me to understand body language and people's confusing behavior in social situations.

Suffering from mild dyslexia meant I always struggled in spelling and grammar and worked hard to combat it.. though every so often I'll just be unable to read for a second or minute..

Because of my social quirks I was picked on as a child. That is until one day I little seven year old Robert beat the snot out of a sixth grader on the school bus and got suspected for a month.

While this warned away would be bullies for pretty much the rest of grade through high school. It didn't do me wonders with gaining any friends.

Skip to high school and at that point I'd become rather acclimated with the dynamics of social interaction. And while I had become a master of "fitting in" with every social click and manipulating public opinion to become a two year Student Body President and captain of all the Sportsball teams I engaged in.

I still spent most of my evenings and weekends alone.

But again, that meant spending more time lifting weights, running, reading, playing video games, drawing on my own. Finding what interested me and learning from suffering what to become better at and what not to do, depending on the desired outcome.

Throughout my professional career targeted because of my work ethic or because of how well I accomplished a given task. I have been told I don't deserve promotions, to be in positions I earned through hard work, or targeted for political attack because I opposed a foolish and costly directive of a more politically powerful manager (even when I was proven correct).

These people usually rose to their position not through talent or work ethic. But through privilege, bribes (investing in the company and getting a management position) or generational influence. This of course meant anyone with actual talent and or work ethic painfully highlighted their incompetence, lack of wisdom and lack of experience.

This usually resulted in targeting me with extra work, assigning failing projects to me when such projects were 75% off the rails, or piling on 200% workloads that were unreasonable or unobtainable.

I would take this suffering and push through it. Taking the impossible as a personal challenge to prove to myself (not them) that I could do it. Did I succeed? Not even most of the time, the challenge was too great for one person to possibly do. But I didn't stop, and some times I did succeed making them look like an ass in the process.

Suffering has made me tolerant of adversity and made my well deep.

You may be familiar with the saying, "fill your cup full of knowledge, but only to the brim. Some people's cup is actually a shot glass. While others a 64 oz bucket."

I have a well and I keep digging deeper.

The second is broken promises.

This pertains to myself and others throughout my life. One reminds me that no matter the faith and trust you may put into some. They have to choose how to respond and mirror that trust or break it.

In business as in personal relationships I have a tenuous apprehension for faith and trust.. unless it is backed by honorable action and keeping of their word.

Honor, a old notion in today's instant gratification, always looking for the better relationship, more money, better job, more powerful position culture.

Honor seems a quaint concept to the honorless.

Broken promises reflect and reminder of how foolish and selfish others can be while reminding me of my own mistakes and having the bravery to try again and wish for a positive outcome.

It is also a reminder of my failures and that I will make amends.

What about you?