Everyone you know will let you down.
Family - siblings, parents, children. Relatives. By not showing up, by fighting over feeble matters, by looking after themselves.
Friends - best or otherwise - or mere acquaintances, by missing your birthday, neglecting to keep in touch, generally not caring about your well-being beyond the ''how's it going? Hope you're doing well!'' portion of communication.
Your spouse, through lies, things untold, cheating on you with an old, bald, toothless guy or worse - a
Bruno Mars-looking motherfucker you always think of when a shitty song plays on the radio or TV (or a
Madonna lookalike for girls, which encompasses all of these adjectives).
Strangers will let you down.
Sports teams, athletes, entertainers. Idols.
Politicians pretty much get paid for letting you down.
Things will let you down, too: your car, your TV, public transit, piping systems, air conditioners, your computer, your phone.
What's important, what matters most, is how you're going to deal with it, the amount of bullshit you're willing to put up from each of those sources before you snap and kick them to the curb, always keeping in mind we only have one life, we never know when it's going to end for any of us (unless someone takes matters into their own hands), and it's best to be with people you love/enjoy/appreciate than with people you hate - or alone.
It's normal not to have the same level of tolerance to the bullshit for everyone: I'll forgive my brother or woman (not that I would 'own' the woman, just the one I'd be with at the time) a lot more crap than I would someone I see once a year or less.
But you can't hold a grudge with someone for a long time if it's for something stupid (say, someone didn't return a book you lent them), you have to pick your battles. Especially for one that threatens to have you never see that person again.
On the other hand, life isn't a fucking slogan, either. Sayings like this one piss me off to the extreme (as
Vanilla Ice would say):
Because people can let you down even if you don't ''put yourself in that position'', even if you have no fucking expectations towards them, just because they're fucking human beings and that's what we do - we think of #1, or we don't think at all. It's the nature of the beast.
I know, the Holidays are a time to celebrate, be festive, happy, but it's also a time where those who don't have the means to share and spend time with others become sadder and more depressed than ever; the poor remain poor, the needy are still in need. And the betrayed remain stabbed in the back. I'm just thinking of them today.
