You, Me and Your Worst Enemy

"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

It's rude of me to question a saying of a wise man, but isn't it better to understand than to not like something if I don't understand it? As for this quote, I understand completely. Take Facebook for instance. Just today someone that I recently became friends with made a very rude comment to which I unfriended him for. His friends are mad for making the comment, and the friend that he tagged in the comment is furious. I'm assuming that the silent unfriending that is going on is speaking volumes to this character and he is chastising himself for such a comment. We have not become his enemies, but are giving him the fuel to judge his own self.

"Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you."
- Yassir Arafat

Quite often we find ourselves with a new character in our life. Some how this character can be beneficial, as in can help you fix your car or knows how to save at the nearby grocery store.  These friends are handy and quite often indispensable. Here I should also add, be nice to everyone. Your kind gesture may turn their day around. However, when you are rude or inconsiderate, then you have made an enemy. You suddenly have a target on your back. Imagine that you're back in middle school, the breeding ground for gossip, false friends and first period gym class.  On your first day you bumped into the cheerleaders captians little sister and spilled her homework all over the floor. Suddenly you hear taunts and cheers of being clumsy, an idiot and so forth. But she doesn't say anything rude. Instead, she cleans up her homework, with your help and you both apologise and move on. You've made a ten second friend. On the other hand if you hadn't helped and let her be, why would you help the next it girl anyways, you've made yourself the target and no one will help you. You've found yourself with enemies when this was a chance to make a few friends.

"There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself : an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly."
- Antisthenes

Words can hurt and they can heal. When they hurt, sometimes people feel that the best way to make that hurt go away is to pass on the hurtful words. Some girls are told that they are too fat, when they're as thin as a bean pole, and tell the next person in line that they are too. Some boys are told that they aren't tall enough to do a sport, so the pass it on to the next person saying that they're too dumb to play. Words hurt, when they shouldn't. Words some times kill too, they're our greatest weapon. The person that you allow yourself to hurt you, has become in control of you because you allow that comment to destroy you. Next time you hear a rude comment toward yourself, think about the person that said it to you. Often when I'm on the internet, I hear that the skinny girls need to eat more. When I see this I wonder about the subjects self esteem. Is she going to take this to heart? Who is really saying this to her? Are these people losing thier temper because they see a skinny person who happens to be that body type naturally and they're made because they're not? Or are these people her friends and have noticed an eating pattern in their friend and they're concerned? 

As a closing statement, if I was ever stuck on a deserted island with you, myself and my worst enemy, I would say my worst enemy is the mirror, because all I can see is myself. And what I see in myself sometimes is not the most postive person that I can be.