Opinion

Spiting Others Only Hurts Yourself

By JOHN GATHRIGHT

It happened one morning in a huge miso barrel. Living up in the trees in a miso barrel house is great fun, but the daily maintenance is a killer. It was while doing my chores one early morning that I stumbled on a strange young girl lying face down inside the children's playhouse barrel.

I nearly jumped out of my skin with surprise until a second look confirmed that she wasn't dead but lying face down in a puddle of tears sobbing her heart out.

We'll call the young girl in the terrible predicament Risa.

Risa was 14 years old, six months pregnant and homeless. Her mother had died and her very busy doctor father had remarried a much younger lady. The new stepmother resented having a 14-year-old step-daughter and was very abusive and cruel. And Risa's father was too busy to recognize her perilous situation.

Out of desperation Risa had tried suicide a couple of times. Finally, out of spite, she decided, with the encouragement of a friend, to get pregnant. Her plan was to spite her father and bring shame to his medical clinic, hoping somehow he would take pity on her and divorce the terrible stepmother.

Her plan backfired! Her father disowned her and threatened her with violence if she ever returned, leaving Risa a homeless unwed mother at the mercy of fate.

Luckily we have friends who were able to take Risa into their home and under their wing to help her through some very terrible times. Risa is now a young struggling mother trying to finish high school while working part-time and caring for her baby boy. She is no longer a young girl with the world at her feet but a very exhausted adult in a 15-year-old body.

I was often told when I was a teenager and wanted to do something spiteful, "John, don't cut off your nose to spite your face!" It has taken me years to learn the meaning of that saying and yet sometimes I still forget and do something spiteful.

I wanted to share this story because of the great lesson to be found in Risa's struggles. I have met many young people, and older people as well, who out of spite have really caused themselves great suffering and sadness.

Out of spite, they quit school; out of spite they take drugs, or they break a law.

By doing a terrible deed or inflicting pain on themselves they hope to cause sadness to someone else but in the end they only really hurt themselves.

Risa is a good person and working on being a great mother. Neither her father nor stepmother visit or even talk to her and she doesn't have time for many friends. She once told me that she is alone but never lonely, since she has learned to be a friend to herself and under no circumstances does she ever want to hurt that friendship again.

Shukan ST: Feb. 12, 1999

(C) All rights reserved