Sometimes...You're a Sucker

I know it hurts to hear, it hurts me to say it. Listen, I've been to Suckersville more times than I would ever want to admit. Sometimes people just sent me there without my knowledge and sometimes I just gladly hopped the train for the ride. When I got there, I sometimes enjoyed it for the time I was there but the end of the trip always sucked and sometimes when I showed up I just started to cry because I thought 'damn, here again'. Yes, most of us as people have been suckers, men and women, black and white it don't discriminate. Really I've been enough to have postcards and a t-shirt.

I don't like to admit to being a sucker, it's embarassing, it hurts, and you feel like a fool cause really were a fool. You sometimes think, how did I let this happen? But really no one is immune and usually when we do the 'why me' thing I think, why not you? What's so special that you get spared, it's a part of life. I want to let people know it's okay, the thing that is not okay about it is if you don't learn anything from your sucker experience. Not learning from the sucker experience, only dooms you to be a sucker again. Not acknowledging your part in playing the sucker, will guarantee that another trip to Suckersville is in your future.

Lots of different folks can enable you to be sent on a trip to Suckersville, your family, your kids, strangers, your boss and co-workers, but usually we visit the most when we're in a relationship. There can sometimes be something about being in love or thinking you're in love that makes suckerdom so appealing. There's a song called 'Everybody Plays the Fool' I forget who it's by but it's apropos for this post. Because yes, we've all played the fool. Some of us are still playing the fool. I know we don't want to always admit it but I like passing on a little wisdom to help those that have been to Suckersville or are on their way figure out how to learn from the process so you don't have to continuously repeat it. I'm not beyond saying I been a sucker, it's okay I'm a sucker no more but yea I was there with ya! I don't think that being a sucker has anything to do with how old you are. I know women who are in their 20s that may have a had a sucker experience and learned from it so they don't repeat the sucker behavior. I also know women in their 50s that at every turn they are being suckered and don't realize it. It has nothing to do with age, it has to do with wisdom and that can come at any age.

Am I trying to explain to you how avoid being a sucker? No. There really is no way to avoid it, sometimes we make bad choices but the point is if you make better choices things can change. You know you can actually be different, have a different life, make different choices, it's up to you. I know sometimes people think, well this it, things won't ever be different but that's defeatist and untrue. I'm proof that things can be different, that if we think critically about the choices we make and how we have a stake in those choices we avoid traveling the long, winding and harrowing road to Suckersville. I am not without fault when my sucker experience happened, I made the choice to endure whatever it was I endured in that relationship. I made the choice not to require more of that man. I made the choice to think that the little I got was what I deserved. I made the choice to put with ridiculous shit, I did. When I decided that I didn't like visiting Suckersville, it stinks, the weather sucks, it's not fun. I put the responsibility on me to make better choices. I figured if I learned from my previous mistake, I wouldn't make that mistake again and I could avoid the sucker experience. Novel idea, huh? And lo and behold it worked, but it meant I had to analyze what I had been doing wrong, not what someone else had been doing wrong. Because really, I was the factor that wasn't changing, the guy changed he had different face, name and everything but at his essence he was the same dude that could not wait to put my dumb ass on a train bound for Suckersville.

Now, what I'm saying is don't get down on yourself, nothing is wrong with you, you just haven't honed your choice making skills that's all. If I didn't want to re-visit Suckersville I had to make sure I wasn't picking up folks along the way that were hitching rides there. We all know when we're being okey-doked. When I was okey-doked by my ex, I would make elaborate excuses up for his bad behavior. You should never have to make up excuses for your partner's bad behavior and they should never require you to. I knew things were wrong with him and by the end I knew something was seriously wrong with me. So when it came time to think about picking someone again, I got smart, I got a strategy and I went to work on it. I had requirements for the guy, yea dude you can't ride with me without money for gas. Yea, we have to be going to Productive-town, if you're going anywhere else or if I even get a whiff that he was going anywhere else he got kicked out the car. Don't waste your precious time on folks who don't know where they are going and most definitely know where you're going. You knowing your destination is key to you not being a sucker, it means you have standards, requirements, that have to, not need to, but have to be done to get the place where you want to be. Get your car in working order, make sure your luggage is packed correctly, no trash bags, get your tires on straight and go for it. Life is an adventure but it's one you can learn and grow from, sometimes it's uncomfortable and challenging but you don't have to throw in the towel. If you want to have a different life, you have to make different choices.