Y’know what?

I like knowing something that someone else wants to know but doesn’t know.

And while I do like to help people and share things I’ve learned, I like it even more when the asker COULD know what they wanted, if they did something simple, but they choose not to take the action required.

“Does anyone have a DPS meter?” Is one of those questions that gives me cruel pleasure.

Pleasure for two reasons: Yes, I have a DPS meter, but no, I’m not going to admit it to you nor share the results of it. If someone else does, that’s their decision, but I won’t do it, not even for friends.

Turning Annoyance Into Pleasure

I’ll admit, I didn’t always feel this pleasure… It used to really annoy me, and I’d frequently say “if you want to know the meters, install them…” but that just served to escalate my own annoyance when the person ultimately responded something confirming just how lazy they really were, and how much they expected others (complete strangers!) to enable their laziness. And of course, they didn’t feel guilty about this at all.

But, at some point in trying to feel good feelings more often than bad, I switched the way I looked at the situation and now find myself feeling pleasure about having knowledge that someone too lazy to get it themselves wants, and purposely withholding it.

According to the works of Esther Hicks (which are odd in some parts but very interesting and helpful in others if you’re into the self-help/”how to live a joyous life” genre of books), I moved from Irritation to Pessimism, which is a step UP the ladder towards Joy and Appreciation and Empowerment, and away from the bottom of the ladder of Fear, Grief, Depression and Powerlessness.

Am I Being Mean?

Yes, it’s true, it could be labelled “not nice” behavior, but I tell ya - I do this in other relationships as well, without guilt: I withhold certain types of information that someone could easily gather themselves if it were truly valuable information to them.

Why? Because I’ve learned that if I just GIVE them the answer they seek, I teach them they don’t need to take responsibility for what they want to acquire/learn - they can rely on the organization or knowledge of others to get what they want. And worse, if they’re someone I run into often, the more answers I give, the more they depend upon me as the source of their answers.

Oops, did I just twist my body while doing a little shrug? Is that why you’re on the floor? Oh, I’m sorry. Looks like you’d better get up, as we’re moving forward.

Funny Who Asks For Posting Of Meters…

I do find it interesting, tho, that the person asking for the DPS meters is either right on top on my charts, or way down at the bottom. Very few of them are in between. Maybe those people have meters and are striving, or maybe they just don’t care?

Do you have some type of damage meter installed and running when you do an instance or a raid?

Or did you take offense to my attitude above, because you’re one of those who cares about the meters but doesn’t have them installed for whatever reason? :)

(and yes, I know some people’s computers are too slow to run many addons. In my mind, a crappy computer is not a valid excuse for relying on complete strangers in a PUG, or even your “buddies” in a Raiding guild. RL friends, that’s up to you.)

Tags: damage meters, joy of pugging, lazy puggers, pugging, pugging strategy, recount