Should we ever be cruel to be kind?

I was reading one of Lee’s posts the other day – you can read it HERE and it got me thinking. Lee always manages to get me thinking - at least once a week. That’s a lot for a little dog. Anyway, his post got me wondering - let’s say you know someone who’s really not very good at something, but they keep doing it thinking that they are. Like someone who’s disillusioned about their talent – i.e. they don’t have any, but they think that they do. There were lots of those types who auditioned for X-Factor last year - and it was quite sad to see. Or, let’s say someone’s given themselves a totally unrealistic goal based on them thinking that they have abilities that they truly don’t possess. Should you ever enlighten them? Isn’t it kinder to protect them from disappointment?

An example – Claude the fat yellow lab who’s teaching me French decided that his New Year’s resolution was to become a Guide Dog for the blind. It’s a Labrador thing; they feel as if they have to work for a living. It’s bred into them. They can’t help themselves. They feel as if they have to be doing something all the time. They can’t just sit around being petted and loved all day like us sensible, intelligent breeds. No, they always have to have a mission. Anyway, I said to him.

“Listen Claude. Number one - you’ve got no road sense AT ALL, that’s why you’ve got a dickey leg - remember the accident? Number two - you’re too old. Now I know that the saying ‘can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is flawed, ‘cause you can, but these Guide Dog chappies start their training as soon as they’re born, almost. Number three – your own eyesight is crap. Number four – you’ve got major issues when it comes to housetraining – the fact that you refuse to be housetrained would not stand in your favour. Claude, you’d have more chance of becoming an Astronaut. Forget it. Don’t even go there.”

After my advice he was a bit down in the dumps for a while, ‘cause he’d gotten all excited about it, but he rallied and now he’s changed his New Year’s resolution and has resolved to learn German instead, which is a much more realistic goal ‘cause he lives next door to a Daschund. However, after reading Lee’s post I initially wondered if I should simply have kept my mouth shut.

I know Lee’s post isn’t about goals and New Year’s Resolutions or anything really to do with this post, it's about ‘Just doing it’ and not giving up merely because we aren’t the best at what we do. So, as I said, I initially thought I shouldn't have said anything to Claude. Then I started to wonder if, perhaps, we really should give something up when we’re not good at it or have no chance of achieving anything worthwhile with it, or if we’re 'inflicting' it on others.

My mum’s got a dear friend who writes in her spare time. Once upon a time, she wrote her first book and gave it to mum to read. Mum read it and loved it – so she told her friend she thought it was great. That made her friend get all excited because she’d not had much confidence in her writing before and she started believing that maybe it was her vocation, and that she might finally have a way out of the job she hates so much. Three years down the line, five more books and about 100 rejections later, she’s getting quite depressed. She’s just emailed mum another book to read and even though mum thinks her work is great, she’s wondering if it’s time she should tell her to stop thinking of it as a career option and perhaps tell her to knock this writing business on the head. Mum feels guilty that she might have given her false hope.

“After all I’m no literary critique. I’ve no experience in the field of publishing. I’ve no idea what they’re looking for,” she said to Uncle Hugh. “I’ve got a bizarre sense of humour sometimes and a weird taste in everything. I don’t like normal stuff.”
“Thanks,” said Uncle Hugh.
“There might only be two of us on this planet who actually like what she writes – her and me, because all those rejections kind of point to that, don’t they?” she continued. “I feel responsible for making her so depressed. She truly thought that her writing would be a way out of her dead end job – because I’ve been so encouraging. It’s all my fault. I should talk her out of it and try and encourage her to use her time retraining instead.”

Should mum encourage her to do something else? Like I talked Claude out of wanting to be a guide dog? Should we ever be ‘cruel’ to be kind?

(After I posted this and after reading comments from Indi & Braja, mum's decided to keep her gob shut:) - thanks you two - you've helped her with her little dilemma - but I don't feel guilty for talking Claude out of his 'Guide Dog' idea - he would have been a liability;))

Lee, I wish you didn’t make me think so much. My little doggy brain simply can’t cope. I might take up Philosophy. Goodness no. What am I thinking of? (no pun intended) Learning French is quite enough for a little dog – more about that later.

Here’s a little video clip of one of mum’s very favourite cartoon movies ‘Happy Feet’ (mum’s a big kid really) about a little guy who did have a talent and didn't give up, despite being told to by his parents and despite it being very ‘un penguin’ like.