Warning!

Credit to whoever created this sign. You Rock!

I decided this morning that people should come with warning signs.

Like, for example:

Warning! I am fun to be around but the only person I really care about is myself so I will subtly manipulate you until it no longer serves me.

Warning! I am willing to care about you so long as you never do anything I disagree with. If you do, I’ll make a voodoo doll of you and spend my life’s energy on sending you bad mojo.

Warning! I am really kind but I will take the things you say personally and then accuse you of being heartless.

It would make it so much easier to meet new people and make new friends. We could still choose to be friends with anyone. We'd just be better informed. We would be aware of the manipulators manipulations which would save us the trouble of feeling like gigantic idiots later when we realize we've been manipulated. We could be prepared for the person who is sure we are trying to offend them to be offended. We could choose to avoid the person who will eventually end up wishing we would spontaneously burst into flames.

But then I started to wonder what would be on my warning sign. And then I felt a little panicky inside.

I mean, we've all got plenty of things we should warn other people about. No one is perfect. And if we all wore warning signs some people would end up being far lonelier than they already are and mean people would be even bigger jerks than they already are. And it would take all the fun and enthusiasm out of meeting someone new. And we’d probably all start getting really picky and say things like, “I can't be friends with her. Didn't you see her warning sign? Yikes!”

And that kind of thing would turn all of us into big fat jerks.

So I changed my mind.

There are enough jerks in the world already. There are enough people walking around making split second judgments about others already. It’s not doing us any good. Besides, it is probably better I not know what is coming. It is probably better I find out I've been manipulated after the fact so that I don’t miss the experience of being manipulated and the opportunity to learn from being manipulated. It is probably better that I have a few enemies in the world because no one should be liked by everyone. Our enemies keep us on our toes. It is probably better that I am not always understood by the person I’m talking to so that I learn to communicate more clearly. And all of it also gives me the chance to work on forgiveness. Because forgiveness is underrated and probably one of the most important acts we can learn and perform.

It is easy to love the people who treat us well. But learning to love those who don’t is the kind of thing that can really make an impact in this world.

Besides, if we all wore warning signs, I may have avoided the one that said: I am going to call you some day while I’m having a mental break-down and ask you to come over and shave my head and then we will be really good friends. For Life. Because what might have stood out to me was the part about freaking out and not the part about friendship and so I might have walked on by and missed the chance to have one of the most amazing friendships of my life.

And that’s the thing about it. We don’t know what part of the warning sign we would pay the most attention to and what experience we may end up missing or having as a result of that choice. We wouldn't know what we were missing and we might miss out on something amazing. 

But I still think it would be nice if sometimes we could avoid some of the bruises we don’t see coming or at least be able to make the cuts sting a little less.