Do you allow your crazy Uncle to plan Thanksgiving dinner?

Every family has one.

A crazy relative that sits at the end of the table declaring how the world should be if they were in charge.

Everyone in the family knows who they are, the crazy one.

They don't discuss it.

They just say to each other that they are, "that way."

Are they allowed by the host to bring the main course?

The dessert?

Do they get to plan any games?

Do they get to decide who sits where?

Do they get any real decisions that will affect the outcome of the meal and gathering?

The wise answer should be no, they do not.

To allow them any hand in the decision making would herald them as the official party pooper.

The party pooper.

Every family has one.

Fact in point, 1 in 25 people in the U.S. are officially party poopers.

Psychology defines them as sociopaths.

See The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PH.D.

They are not serial killers as depicted in the movies if that's what you are thinking.

No.

The sociopath has many faces.

And that face is always turned towards admiring themselves.

They know the difference between right and wrong but will do either to achieve the thing they want.

They see no difference between good and evil.

What is paramount in their lives is what I call the thing that gives them their orgasm.

It doesn't mean sex, but it can undoubtedly be sex.

It can be power and wealth too.

Power over the conversation at the dinner table or at the negotiation table.

Wealth took out of the community and society or out of your wallet.

Sex took from individuals with low self-esteem or running a sex trafficking ring.

The sociopath cares only for themselves and their orgasm.

It is why you don't allow the sociopath to have a part in your dinner plans.

They will let you down every time.

But in their own way, you can always count on them to act the same way every time at every event.

They will be the party pooper.

They will spoil your event.

They will spoil your nation.

They will spoil your life.

They will destroy your party.

If you know, 100 people it's a good bet 4 of them are sociopaths to one degree or another.

We have one in our family that destroyed our lives for a time until we recovered.

Our nation has one right now as President.

It's taking a while for some of our other elected leaders, as well as media, to come to the conclusion that the leader of the free world has a personality disorder.

Just like in my own circle of family and friends, it took a long while before some realized there was a problem.

While still others refuse to admit there is a problem yet today.

Just like in our national discourse, the good people keep hanging on the chance that the evil person will change.

Good people are ingrained with the idea of redemption.

But redemption works as a practice only if the person who needs redeeming wants redemption.

If they don't care if they do good or evil, they'll tell you what you want to hear so you'll get off their backs.

They are incapable, the sociopath, of having a moral dilemma because they have no morals.

They are extraordinary human beings because they have no empathy whatsoever.

Are you getting the picture of why you don't want them planning your next Thanksgiving dinner?

That crazy relative can have a place at the table but theirs some things you cannot as a person of goodwill allow them to do.

You can't have them give the blessing.

They can't give a toast.

You can't have them set the table.

You can't let them have control of the conversation.

You can't let them plan for the future.

You, yourself, have to plan around them.

That's some free advice to the Congress and the Senate.

Take it for what it is worth.

You don't have to know what I know about sociopaths being party poopers.

You're getting a mouth full of first-hand experience right now.

Don't choke.

The misery will keep on coming until the day you say stop.

Peace

DFrey