In High School a friend gave a humorous speech where he ripped into 1/2 of our 100 student class. His speech was great and, yes, he made fun of me... some geek joke. For reasons I do not remember the HS counselor was sitting in that day and he went ballistic.
After Neil finished Counselor Bob took the podium and gave the "Dip from my bucket" speech. I was not in the class but this is one of those things from HS where it's been talked about so much everyone feels like they were there.
Their are people who people who are nice and tell you good things. They fill your bucket, counselor Bob explained, and you like being around them. In return you want to say nice things to them and help them fill their bucket. There are people who are nasty and want to cut you down. They want to fill their bucket by taking from yours.
Now, in reality, Counselor Bob had a point but his credibility was shot by the class of '87 because he was known for talking in the bars about students.
And I've always appreciated Neil's speech. Yes, he made fun of me. He also made fun of a whole lot of other people. Who did he NOT make fun of? Those who were disadvantaged or simply not bright. So while you shouldn't dip from people's buckets, I think Neil was right: Dip from those who can afford it. I love the positive self-help guru bullshit. It's a large part of who I am. There's no teenager alive who has read more self-help books than I did. But at some point you realize that there is a certain level of fake involved. Counselor Bob was 90% fake and that's why my classmates avoided him.
Your story made me think of my circa 1996 HS counselor.
ReplyDeleteThere were three things that made everyone avoid him...
1.) He was full of 1960's motivational/inspirational Bullshit. And he told LONG stories that in no way pertained to you.
2.) He smelled really bad.
3.) If you were a woman, you were afraid he might sexually molest you.