stop

An old joke tells of a construction worker who looked at the sandwich in his lunch box and complained, "Baloney again. I hate baloney!"

Trying to be helpful, a coworker suggested, "If you hate it so much, why don't you ask your wife to make you something else?"

The man replied, "My wife didn't make it. I did."

The sandwich is a metaphor for the things we repetitively do to ourselves that undermine, rather than enrich, our lives. People who make themselves baloney sandwiches and then act like victims when it's time to eat them are like the fellow who killed his parents and then asked the court for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.

When Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, 

he could have been thinking of all the people who disable their good sense, abandon their values and high standards and ignore their experience by getting involved in baloney-sandwich relationships.

for some, it's the injured bird they want to heal or the bad seed they think they can reform. 

Others are irresistibly attracted to people who are unavailable, either because they're married or constitutionally unwilling to make commitments. 

Still others are attracted to manipulative, unkind, even violent mates.

The solution is to take control of your life. 

Stay away from toxic and dysfunctional people and find those who help you feel, content and worthy. 

Settle for nothing less.

-michael josephson