Foo - Necessary Losses.

All throughout our lives we have to endure losses. Some of us have felt that these losses have left gaps in our lives, an incompleteness of sorts. We go through the uneasiness of denial, the "mourning", the doubt of whether or not this could have been affected by a different decision we could have made. As time moves on, we are faced with acceptance - then the realization that this loss was in essence a contributor to gain.

It took me a long time but I have decided to let go of something (someone) who I felt I can no longer allow to be in my life because of the negativity this person brought to the "friendship". Ill gotten gains, lies, greed. Not being able to admit to mistakes and placing blame on others. Although I tried to see past this and tried to be a friend to this person (I've many times pointed out how the devious swindling is unfair), I came to the conclusion that this person is not someone I want to associate with any longer. I was given grief for not celebrating the rewards of such dishonesty and couldn't find it in myself to do so. The pain this person has caused others is something I couldn't stand by to watch and my efforts to inform him this was not right went without a hearing ear.

Over the course of time I am no longer feeling bad for letting this person go. As a matter of fact, I feel as though I am able to contribute more on the positive, and giving to people who are able to accept me for what I believe are true morals - and not chastise me for not liking or agreeing with a dishonest way of life.

To me, this was a necessary loss. :)

Tell us about the positive gains in your necessary losses.

:thumb:

You did the right thing, Siu! Sometimes its hard to make positive changes like that, but if that person is affecting you in a negative manner consistently, you then that person is not a good one to have around you.

All throughout our lives we have to endure losses. Some of us have felt that these losses have left gaps in our lives, an incompleteness of sorts. We go through the uneasiness of denial, the "mourning", the doubt of whether or not this could have been affected by a different decision we could have made. As time moves on, we are faced with acceptance - then the realization that this loss was in essence a contributor to gain.

It took me a long time but I have decided to let go of something (someone) who I felt I can no longer allow to be in my life because of the negativity this person brought to the "friendship". Ill gotten gains, lies, greed. Not being able to admit to mistakes and placing blame on others. Although I tried to see past this and tried to be a friend to this person (I've tried to point out how the devious swindling is unfair), I came to the conclusion that this person is not someone I want to associate with any longer. I was given grief for not celebrating the rewards of such dishonesty and couldn't find it in myself to do so. The pain this person has caused others is something I couldn't stand by to watch and my efforts to inform him this was not right went without a hearing ear.

Over the course of time I am no longer feeling bad for letting this person go. As a matter of fact, I feel as though I am able to contribute more on the positive, and giving to people who are able to accept me for what I believe are true morals - and not chastise me for not liking or agreeing with a dishonest way of life.

To me, this was a necessary loss. :)

Tell us about your positive gains in your necessary losses.

The day two years ago that I finally had to leave work due to my health, I called my best friend (and best man) and told him the news. Knowing he was a "religious" person (I'm not), I asked him to have a good thought for me as I began my attempt to recover and get back to work.

Never heard from him again.

I went to his house one day a year later to pick up a DVD I had lent him (TDF 1999, ironically), and his wife answered the door. As I was leaving, she said "Our families really need to get together." I just looked at her quizzically and replied "I'm not even sure how to answer that."

The friend called me a week later and basically said the same thing. My reply: "I've gotten this far on my own, I'll make the rest of the way, or not, on my own as well."

I'm not sure whether I am angry at him for not "knowing" how to be there for someone going through what I'm dealing with , but I do know that my wife and I at least made an effort to help them through the wife's breast cancer years ago.

So, this is basically addition by subtraction.

Sometimes it takes a lot of disappointment and hurt to realize what a true friend is. In my case, he has proven that a true friend isn't one who wants you to take part or be involved with the bad.

Letting your friend go like I did mine indeed rewarded us with gains in keeping true to ourselves.

Sometimes it takes a lot of disappointment and hurt to realize what a true friend is. In my case, he has proven that a true friend isn't one who wants you to take part or be involved with the bad.

Letting your friend go like I did mine indeed rewarded us with gains in keeping true to ourselves.

gives more time for daydreaming in a bikini at the beach too. :innocent:

been there, done that, it's the right thing to do

Good going! And it's not a loss because having someone like that in your life drags you down. So you were losing and being dragged below zero by that person. By cutting them out, you cut that loss and get back to zero and are prepared for bigger and better things. So I'd call it "cutting continual losses", like fixing a balance-sheet that's always in the red. :)

Especially if it makes way for a more positive things! Necessary losses are just that. NECESSARY. :D

That is why I want to hear of the positive that came out from other's losses. :)

collateral damage and eye for an eye

Siu, good for you. I did the same a long time ago. Postitives: I stayed out of jail as his negative influences on my young life were detrimental. He died in jail not long ago after he was sentenced to life in prison drugs, weapons and various other charges for the 3rd time. Florida is a 3 strikes state.

Wow, that was a great life choice you had made. You cannot control the actions of others, only yourself. Imagine if you continued to go on that path.

I started an auto-shop with a friend about 6-years ago. He was a great mechanic and loved to party and have fun. But... I let the friendship cloud my judgment on him being a good business partner. He ended up fighting me tooth & nail on the terms of the incorporation and ownership. I wanted a quarterly re-distribution based upon capital invested and hours worked. He wanted a 50/50 partnership no matter what.

Anyway, this dragged on for over about 2-years and really hurt the business. We were losing thousands a week as work was being ignored because of finger-pointing over whose "duty" it was to handle everything, like answering phones, logging phone-calls, preparing quotes, calling back customer-inquiries, etc. All he wanted to do was the fun tinkering and R&D stuff; meanwhile, we had customer-orders to fulfill and ship every day.

At some point, I had to cut my hemorrhaging losses and close down the operation and effectively "fire" my partner. He didn't take kindly to it and it killed our friendship. But at some point, you always have to watch out for #1 in your life... YOU!!! :)

Poor Pheard.

I don't know if you guy's are going to believe this or not but after you make your choice to believe it or not it's still going to be true, I have no fiends, 0, zilch, none, nada, and I don't regret for one minute my choice not to have any :) as so far every so called "friend" that I've had from childhood to adult have been fake phoneys trying to impress me and every one else how great they and thier families were. So I' don't know how I would react if I were to find a true friend? It would be like being in another world for me, new world if you will :)

Your true friend will be there for you when you least expect them to be.

I know where you are coming from! And losing a friend is like going through a breakup... it creates a void, affects your social patterning, probably even makes you a little angry at the other person, and maybe makes you question your decision. Without fail, in the end you fill that void with other (better) things. Things that make you feel good- even better about yourself than you did when you were being drug down. No relationship is worth sacrificing the good parts of yourself, it should be a complement.

I've always been one who has maintained a small circle of good friends. Occasionally a bad apple has spoiled my bunch, too. I don't have a specific tale of triumph to share, only the reassurance that better things are on the horizon if you are not seeing them already!

Is this your way of telling me I'm on your 'Ignore' list?

There are always going to be losses in our lives... those that we don't choose and those that we do.

They all hurt.

Sometimes the hurt never goes away completely and that hurt should serve as a reminder that what you lost was something really good.

I met a woman the other day at our bike shop and when she left me her card I recognized the name and the address was a box number in the same area my grandparents had lived.

I found out that she had spent as much time as me at my grandparent's farm as she grew up on the next quarter section, that her brother and mine were close friends and had gone to school together, and that she thought (as do I) that my grandparents were some of the nicest people to ever grace the face of this planet.

This brought back many happy memories and more than just a little hurt as my grandparents had a great role in raising me and really were that wonderful.

Not too long ago I ran into a childhood friend...we grew up three doors from each other and I remember riding my tricycle with this guy who's life has taken some pretty hard turns.

He has issues with addiction, has spent time in jail, and I could not let him know where I lived or give him my cel phone number as in the past, this has always caused problems.

That hurt too because I remember that there were once better times for him and I.

Met a really strange kid when I was 16. He lived 2 doors down from me and we started hanging out. He would were a hat with a feather in it, and was incredibly smart. We had a lot of fun together. We used to screw with people just to see what would happen. We once walked through a local fair holding hands to see what kind of reactions we would get. He was my best friend, then I moved and went to school for a couple years. I visited about halfway through my schooling and we went drinking. He got hammered. He got drunk the next day, and the next, and the next. The last night we hung out, he started really badmouthing the girl I was dating. He had never met her, but he was blasting her hard. He was drunk. This happened for about half an hour. I kept telling him to drop it, but he wouldn't. He just drank more and more. Then he called her a f****** w****. I punched him and that was it.

I haven't thought about that in years, but it was pretty rough for a long time.

I have violence issues.

Hmmm, in a funky sentence:

I'm free and have been divorced of an overbearing, macho, bar fighting, drunken driving, mean, cheating kinda thing who evolved into a drug kinda crack smoking pedo that was caught and imprisoned for many years.

k?

free, effer is gone

Great thread. Thanks.

Siu, I don't see what your loss is. You mention the effort you put into being a friend to this person, and it sounds like all you got in return is grief. I don't sense that there was any real friendship that you lost. Sounds to me like this change was all gain. :thumb:

Lucky for me, I've had some minor disappointments, but no poisonous situations that I had to escape.

Siu, I don't see what your loss is. You mention the effort you put into being a friend to this person, and it sounds like all you got in return is grief. I don't sense that there was any real friendship that you lost. Sounds to me like this change was all gain. :thumb:

Lucky for me, I've had some minor disappointments, but no poisonous situations that I had to escape.

I guess I interpreted this as being free. And glad to be free. And moving on.

No?

Good for you.

Of course, this extends to other things in your life, not just people.

Some things in my life (my anger issues and relationships with siblings, especially) have taken a turn for the better in my few years, and I'm very grateful for that.

:thumb:

I had to take care of some stuff today...

Not a loss, just a change.

To me, this was a necessary loss. :)

Tell us about the positive gains in your necessary losses.

Dated a girl for a couple of years, was getting pretty serious, but she dumped
me saying "I don't know if you're right for me".
I was devastated, but got over her and came to realise, actually, that *SHE*
wasn't all that *I* needed ... Two months after she dumped me, she wanted me
back but I'd seen the light, seen her flaws (to which I was blinded when we
were together), and declined her offer.

A while later I met someone else, she's now my wife, we have two kids
and life is fine ... The girlfriend mentioned above found someone else a few
years later, got married and recently had a kid too, so life goes on.

:thumb:

G

I had wrote this four years ago to my Mom shortly after falling in love with my future Wife:


"Now (name removed) is a part of me and for that I am so very thankful. We have both decided that our purposes in life, were to take the hard knocks and learn the lessons that were put to us as a learning experience for when the time came for both of us to finally meet."


We both think that our purpose in Life now is to be there for the needs of the other.

<<WARNING - OLD(ER) GUY VIEW>>

Siu you did the correct thing, of course. Sometimes when we are younger we connect up with people for the wrong reasons; they went to the best parties, got you into the "coolest" cliques, etc. But as we get older we realize that many of those habits that they had, and we wanted to emulate, were self destructive or just unpleasent.

Welcome to the peaceful side.

Thank you DA but I'm not that young!! :cry: So I hear ya ;)

Another necessary loss for me was when I had to sell my coveted Fiero GT to pay the mortgage during a lay off. It hurt real bad to have to let it go but I know my priorities. A few months down the line I was able to talk the person into selling it back to me. She beat the heck out of it and did some big time damage. I ended up selling it again because I know at that point it would nickle and dime me to death. When I went to bring it to the dealer who was willing to pay pretty good money for it, I saw at the other end of the lot a beautiful Trans Am. The one I still own today. :love:

I got rid of my CZ52 after it popped me upon being dropped. I sure don't miss it. I'm gonna replace it with a .454 Casull.

I got rid of my CZ52 after it popped me upon being dropped. I sure don't miss it. I'm gonna replace it with a .454 Casull.

Go big or go home, eh? I dont think I would want to even try a .454.

The thing is you can also use a .454 to shoot 45 Colt, and even .45 ACP with moon clips. And with a .454, when you want to out do Dirty Harry, you can.

I finally let go of my best friend from age 5 that had drifted away, starting in college... and the funny thing is that he's come back, in his own way. The guy is a very frustrated artist who has suddenly hit his stride in life, which is to paint on the side, and I regularly get the pictures he does in email. He doesn't write much... and freely admits he's not much on writing or calling, but at least I'm getting correspondence from him now, and every once in a while we exchange a few emails on what is happening in our lives. Means a LOT to me!

One of my good friends since high school and his wife divorced about three years ago, which was very hard on the kids as well as the adults. Two years later, he's diagnosed with a brain tumor, and lives another year before it took him down. His ex-wife believes that the divorce trained them to be able to handle his fight with cancer and his death. Even though they were divorced, they went thru the cancer episode together as a family.

In July 2006, my wife of 20+ years told me she wanted us to separate. So I moved out. That sucked, especially as we had battled through some really tough times together over the years.

Last year, it became clear that my best friend, whom I've known for over 30 years (we were each other's Best Man), was drinking again. After a stunning amount of drama (alcoholics and other addicts create amazing amounts of drama around them), I had to tell his ex-wife not to let their 3 year old daughter get in a car with him because I came to have irrefutable proof that he was (a) drinking and driving and (b) not strapping his little girl into a car seat. He saw that as a total betrayal and read me out of his life. Six weeks later, on Sept. 16, 2007, he died, alone and at home, of complications of cirrhosis (meaning an intestinal blood vessel, weakened from years of abuse, burst and he bled to death).

Also last year, in May, my wife decided that she wanted a divorce. I made one more try at reconcilliation in July, which she turned down.

At the memorial for my friend in late September, I re-met a woman I went to high school with (we were friends then, and ran in the same crowd, but not close). We went out on a date on October 29 and haven't stopped seeing each other since. We are deeply in love, and the future looks bright and beautiful. Without those two excruciating events - the breakup of my marriage and the decline and death of my dear friend - this would not have happened.

I'm not sure if my losses qualify as "necessary" in the sense that Siu meant, but they were necessary preconditions to the great place I find myself today. That does not mean that I advocate pain as a path to betterment, but it sometimes does, in fact, lead to something good.

Pain still sucks, though.

In life, pain is inevitable,
but suffering is optional...

I got rid of my CZ52 after it popped me upon being dropped. I sure don't miss it. I'm gonna replace it with a .454 Casull.Guns don't shoot people...:thumb: