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Self Sabotage

Imagine this;

Samantha’s mother packs her a fantastic lunch each day. One day, Samantha saw Keith eating one dry sandwich.  The next day, he had the same thing. She felt sorry for him.

She told her mother and asked that tomorrow she pack an extra cookie, which she did.

The next day, Samantha sat at Keith’s table and opened her lunch box and asked him if he wanted a cookie.

He looked at the cookie, it was home made, it was big, but Keith didn’t take charity, so said, “No.”

Samantha’s friend Joanie sat down and Samantha gave her the extra cookie, and they spoke about how good a baker Samantha’s mother was.

The day after that, Samantha sat at the other side of the room and never looked at or spoke to Keith again.

Now if Keith had taken the cookie, he’d probably get another the next day, maybe half of her lunch the following week, and instead of having a small sardine sandwich would have had a variety of clever and tasty dishes. But, being stupid he decided his ‘pride’ could not permit him to take a cookie.

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What do you think?

Written by jaylar

4 Comments

  1. Yes, I see what point you are making. It gets on my nerves as well when people refuse help etc that they clearly need just because of their pride. But sometimes there is a good reason for refusing, i.e. not wanting to be beholden to someone. People quite often expect things back, that is the trouble.

    • I know a little girl who was very sad at school, and during lunch she sat in the classroom and another girl bought her a pattie. She ate it, and was very nice about it. It wasn’t that she didn’t have lunch money or anything like that, she was sad about something else. However, despite the fact she was eleven years old, she didn’t hurt that other girl’s feelings.

  2. Maybe he just didn’t want the cookie? Or had been told by his parents not to accept things off others? Sometimes it is not just stubborn pride that stops people accepting gifts etc from others – sometimes we don’t because we know that if we do, we will probably have to reciprocate in some way, it often raises an expectation.

    • I used the cookie as an example… imagine you are at work, having trouble with a machine, someone offers to help, you say no thank you… the person walks away.