The Final Days 9

On pages 263-264 of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, we read:

"[President Richard Nixon's White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler's] staff accepted these menial chores with varying degrees of tolerance, recognizing that the demands he made on them were extensions of the pressures the President put on him.  His temper tantrums were excused on similar grounds.  Nixon raged at Ziegler, they knew, and Ziegler raged back at whoever was handy."

I can sympathize somewhat with people who are jerks because they were hurt in life.  Hopefully, that sort of sympathy on my part can keep me from despising them, for despising people is not good for my own soul, or even my personal interactions, for that matter.  But that doesn't mean that I want to be in any sort of close relationship with them.  And there are situations in which a person should leave a relationship with extreme types of those sorts of people----the types that are abusive.  But do I admire those who stick with relationships with difficult people----people who are not abusive, but who are extremely difficult because of some hurt that they experienced?  I do.  I just don't have that sort of unconditional love within me.  I can love from a distance and wish someone the best, but that doesn't mean that I want a close relationship with that person.  And yet, I somehow hope and expect for people to be understanding of me and my problems.  Maybe I shouldn't have that expectation.  I shouldn't burden people with rules in my mind that I myself am extremely reluctant to follow.

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