The Victim .. By Dr. Hadi Eltonsi

By Dr. Hadi El-Tonsi– Former Ambassador and Medical Doctor

He, a clever Egyptian worker abroad for a salary he has never dreamt of, a real professional who hence attracts the attention of his clients, and despite his short-lived happiness, when he breaks his loneliness and get their admiration and sympathy; it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy his overwhelming need for charity even if it was non-productive. Due to a defect he has, he feels permanently desperate with depressed mood, focusing on and exaggerating all what he sees negative and bringing back bitter memories.

When his misery takes over he starts to complain to those around him, some may just listen, others may turn their backs even if they accommodated him for a while. Feeling that he was always offering his services and courtesy as if asking them to listen in return, he gets angry when he finds himself alone and bored in a tranquil city, that unlike other cities, doesn’t take his attention lacking noise and nightlife.

He quits his job to return to Egypt with unfulfilled financial ambitions, while he doesn’t realize that maybe he was escaping from his real problem.

She, a talented widow that does not earn enough of her job, missed the kind care of her dead husband and the attractive beauty with the years passing by, so she doesn’t feel safe or hopeful of a future she faces alone, then she compensates the deprivation and fear with a possessive love to her family isolating them from other contacts and leading them in pathways that she carefully chooses, or with control on others at whatever price, maybe the practice of force replaces a lost attractiveness or a far-fetched wealth.

When introduced to new contacts she may attract attention with a merry spirit, pretentious sympathy or repeated jokes that she tells intelligently before starting showing off her talents and activities to gain admiration. But that again wouldn’t prevent her from feeling miserable when she is alone remembering bitter stories, so feeling bored and depressed she rushes to complain to other persons who would avoid her sooner or later.

Then she feels even lonelier and the circle repeats itself over and over, while she doesn’t realize that she is escaping from her real problem.

Where is the solution then? Does anyone of them really want to know the answer? I wouldn’t think so, otherwise, they wouldn’t have continued for years building the sadness inside and spreading endlessly the misery around. Even more, they wouldn’t like to have more insight and are afraid of facing critics, even the transient ones, because then they become insistently defensive considering a possible change of their opinions a weakness and a defeat, even if this change was the key of hope and its acceptance a proof of inner power and security.

We don’t choose what problems life brings to us, whether it was aging, disease, handicap or poverty sometimes, but certainly, we choose our attitudes. Each of them has already chosen not to realize the real problem, and imagined that when playing the role of ungrateful victim will get from others all the needs and will be exempted from responsibilities and giving, whether for charity or guilt.

None of them saw that the continuous unfulfilled needs are a proof of a failing choice, because even if one fulfills some temporary needs, others who understand the real problem may dislike them, filling their subconscious with emptiness and self-doubts, as those who realize the issue wouldn’t find what he or she imagines as power, rather they would see in that weakness, misery and maybe ignorance and evils.

Can we then imagine any better choice? And what would happen if one of them tolerated, even once, a constructive pain to realize through it the real problem and the result of the wrong choices, and would use maturely the talents not at the expense of other person’s interests? Isn’t finally this temporary pain, even cruel, better than pains and failures lifelong? Is it true that nothing is worthy in life except wealth, beauty and authority?

Then what about giving, innovation, psychological and spiritual heights of maturity, the deep feelings and knowledge and accepting the will of God after all is done? The answer depends on the choice.

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