Pre-Vacation Sentiments.

I never realized how folks around here just can’t be happy for you when you inform them that you’re going on a vacation. All I had to say was, “Oh by the way, I’m going to **** with my daughter…”, and this is a rough cross section of the typical reactions I got from various persons [in no particular order]:

• immediate narration of all the negative things about the place i’m heading to like the extremities of its climate or culture;
• lamentation of how they had planned to go there as well, but due to circumstances that they proceed to tell at great lengths, they couldn’t;
• telling me that they have a better vacation lined up than the one I’m going to;
• barrage of requests of what I could do for them on my trip: like getting, looking up or delivering stuff for them;
• reflex response of an alternative destination which they tauntingly insist would be all the much better than the one I made;
• telling me tedious tall tales of their experiences with natives or produce of the country I’m visiting for no apparent reason;
• falling into a reverie of their own past trip, and start talking through what is probably the lamest of holidays one could possibly hear about;
• paroxysm of why I made such a godforsaken choice of a destination for a vacation – with supplementary ruminations why they are of that opinion tailored to make me look like a schmuck for my choice;
• immediately talk about making plans of going to the exact same spots I’m going and start to quiz me on my plans which they are going to ante up and make so much more interesting for themselves;
• being told of the ingrate that I am for not including or having given them the opportunity to include themselves in my plans; basically how they would like to go as well and I’m a complete sod for not asking them.

I can only recall two persons who actually showed delight when I told them of the vacation; their faces beamed up instantly and they were all aglow as they congratulated me on my plans and just gushed forth with goodwill, sharing the many things there that they hoped we would enjoy. Fantastic! They helped make the vacation enjoyable even before we left.

Alas, those two souls are not natives of this region.

Can’t the folks around here be more genuinely like that?  Why can’t folks around here just find delight in the joys of others? Even those mentioned above who insisted that you run errands for them during your vacation – how could they just intrude or impose on someone’s best laid out plans? I refuse to shrug it off with over-simplistic judgments like ‘it’s envy’ or ‘they’re just jealous’.  Those are just symptoms I believe – but symptoms to or of what? Insecurity?

Those responses I outlined above were almost like self-defense mechanisms triggered by hearing about someone’s good fortune – in this case, a vacation very much being looked forward to.  But what were they self-defending against; what here was the nemesis or the threat?  The momentary fortune of others?  Why are you threatened by something that you should be joyous about? The information of my vacation was only given in passing and not through some boastful, loud and proud proclamation; but even if it was the latter, is there a necessity to engage to self-defense mode?  Do we find ourselves inferior upon hearing of someone else’s good fortune? So inferior that we have to instantaneously prove ourselves not? Is that what we’re defending against? How? By making those idiotic remarks like the ones I’ve exemplified above?  We don’t mind appearing like an imbecile rather than appear inferior?  Are we that insecure that we might appear lesser?  Is our self-worth only gauged through the eyes of others; or more pathetic still, through how we imagine others see us?  That’s insecurity coupled with the paranoia of it as well.

And if it were true, then oh dear, pathos my people.