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A "warm-line," (as opposed to a hot-line,) for people who are not suicidal, but want someone to talk to....

But…I’m a nice person!

Evil preys more easily upon a person’s virtues than his vices.


Think about it: I absolutely loathe the saying, “You can’t cheat an honest man.” Of course you can. Crooks (for the most part) can’t cheat other crooks. Crooked people are paranoid, and therefore almost always on the lookout for anyone taking advantage of them. Why wouldn’t they be on the alert? They (the crooks) are always on the take, so they assume everyone else is. “Everyone else is out to get a piece of the action,” is their thinking.


But good people aren’t. We are good, so our default mode is always to think the best of someone.


When they screw us over, we think it was an accident.


When we work up the courage to confront them about it, we believe their lies (too numerous to list here).


When we finally come to the realization that they screwed us over on purpose, we forgive, because...


• We don’t want to believe the worst.
• We don’t want to be “like them.”
• We hope our forgiveness causes them to change.
• We are morally lazy.


Let’s address these points, one by one:


1) We don’t want to believe the worst.
Believe it. Evil is real...and it is everywhere.  Life would be so much better if I could get good people to believe Evil exists. That is the first step in eradicating it.


2) We don’t want to be “like them.”
Calling someone out on their evil behavior -- getting right up in their face and saying, “You WILL NOT treat me that way, anymore!”-- is not being, "like them."
They treated you badly when you were innocent of anything. They did it just because they felt like it. You didn’t provoke them: they blamed you after you confronted them. A post hoc rationalization that doesn’t fit the facts.


3) We hope our forgiveness causes them to change.
Magical thinking. It just lets them know what a sucker you are, and eggs them on. Red flag to a bull.


4) We are morally lazy.
It takes effort to finally -- after weighing all the facts -- decide that someone is “Evil.” They are not old, or tired, or senile, or forgetful, or mentally ill or high, or just don’t know any better. The Evil act (or usually, “acts”) is willful, premeditated, and vengeful.


And that’s just the first step. After deciding they are Evil, well…now you have to act on it. You can confront them (a waste of time) or get them out of your life (the best of all possible worlds).

Remember: the enemy knows you have a tendency to forgive: they’re counting on that.