When They Assassinate You (Part 2)

Hello Muses,

Happy Valentine’s day. Hmmmm, love nwantintin tinz. The over-commercialization of the day makes me worry because if you are in a true and loving relationship, everyday should be valentine's day. Anyways, hope you’ve gotten your gifts and kisses and for those of you given to showing them off on social media, trust you have done so already, lol.  Na love matters.

I got quite a deluge of emails on our Part 1. I was intrigued.  As I mentioned in Part 1, it is no surprise to me that a lot of people can relate to the issues and couldn’t wait for the second part. So share with others not on the mailing list and do send me your thoughts too. Here we go:

Part 2:

The green-eyed monster – Jealousy/Envy - lies at the heart of most, if not all character assassinations. Jealousy/Envy are natural human emotions and can be good if they help you see the possibilities available to push you to achieve your own higher goals.

It however becomes a symptom of a deeper psychological problem when it pushes you to destroy the ones who have hurt you, have what you think you should have or belongs to you. In effect, it is those who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent that tend to be more jealous than others. What happens to the jealous/envious person(s), is that you (or whatever it is that you've done to piss them off) acts like a giant mirror, reflecting their own perceived inadequacies and lame excuses. If you're doing or achieving something they believe inside themselves that they should be doing or achieving -- and they're not -- it forces them to ask themselves WHY (and how could he/she, when I don’t?).

And the answers to those questions are not ones that the person trying to destroy you wants to hear, because their failures and inadequacies are painful to accept. So, what do they do? They tell everyone embellished poop about you.  They sell stories that even you become confused as to how that could ever be possible. In some instances, they ensure they are perceived as the victims and therefore you deserve to crucified and killed. They scour and dig up all manners of information about you and sell to their disorganized listeners and for most of their listeners, particularly those who barely know you, it is “privileged” information.  What they sell is

this: He is not special, talented, holy and nice as you know; He makes more horrible compromises than you know; He is fake and a phony, and THAT'S why he getting what they are getting and they the victims are not. In some cases, the person paying for the assassination does nothing more than a suggestion or tell a simple story to another unwaged assassin. In this case, the person who starts the story, lie or rumors will do nothing more than simply suggest something allowing others to run with the idea that they have planted.

People engage in these ruthless attacks on others in books, on their blogs, Facebook and twitter accounts, WhatsApp groups, and in personal conversations. They aren’t merely disagreeing with others, they are actively trying to destroy them with hazing, mockery, slander and character assassination. There is a profound moral disconnect at work in all this. Invariably those who engage in character assassination to advance their views make all sorts of aggressive and self-righteous statements about themselves and their cause and how much pain they’ve suffered.

Character assassination is far easier to take part in than most people even realize. Just spreading or perpetuating a rumor after it has been started is in fact a method of character assassination and should be avoided. Even liking the comments or agreeing without saying a word is invariable support. It is also important to remember that when someone is spreading rumors or trying to assassinate your character they are likely having trouble on their own. In most cases the assassins are insecure themselves and need reassurance that they are worth something. In many cases, those that are seeking to assassinate your character are struggling and may need nothing more than a helping hand or someone to talk to. Though it may be hard to imagine that someone that calls you names or tries to make you look bad needs help, they are often nowhere near as tough as they seem, and destroying others seem like their getaway trip. The attention they receive from their sympathizers, gives them the needed drug-infused high they so much crave for their inane life. They want to trot on your coffin to their happiness and that itself is a web of delusion.

Using Emerson’s quote above - I’ve realized that the people who slander you are not revealing things about me; in every word, they say against you, they are actually revealing mountains of information about themselves, displaying and demonstrating their own character. They ARE showing the world who they really are at their core being. They are simply manifesting what kind of people they are. They are broadcasting to the entire world that they are people who cannot be trusted, that they are unprincipled and disrespectful. They are telling everybody that they are pitifully so consumed by their own arrogance and bitterness blended together to make them so helplessly unable to get past their pains. They even forget they are sharing things people probably would never have known about them.

Some people will argue in favour of the hurt party – that it is because the person is aggrieved, that’s why they resort to assassinating you. What kind of person engages in character assassination against another person because they are hurt or hurting? What kind of character do they possess? Is slander or engaging in character assassination the best choice of a person of character when dealing with somebody who has hurt him or who he has a conflict with? How should a person of integrity and self-respect deal with someone he conflicts with?

No matter how true or justified the basis for a grouse or conflict is, killing another person with words and destroying their reputation does not in any way make you a better person or give you long life or increase your value and worth to others, neither does it assuage your hurt. Not every one of us considers the fact that life is a wonderful gift of God and it should not just be cherished but be lived to the fullest. Some people do not seem to understand well enough the real meaning and purpose of life. They live life with hatred and jealousy and make the lives of others a nuisance.

So, what should you do when this happens? 

We will continue next week with the concluding part of this story. Send me your thoughts. Till then, love life, live well, laugh more and remember, God made life to be lived to the fullest.

Mother Muse,