The Bigger Fool?

Here's an age old question:

Who is the bigger fool? The person who consistently deceives and disappoints others (the "Deceiver") or the person who continues to give Deceivers a chance to redeem themselves and then is constantly let down by them (the "Believer")?

For me, it's an easy answer: The Believer is the fool.

It's wrong to expect the Deceiver to change who they are; therefore, they cannot be the fool. They're either heartless and cruel or delusional about the harm they inflict, but they are who they are. Like the old adage says: "A leopard can't change their spots: - no matter how hard they try. Therefore, we must stop expecting Deceivers to change their spots.

No, the fool is the Believer - the person who doesn't learn from history. The one who keeps giving Deceivers second, third, fourth, hundredth chances to prove themselves and then repeatedly gets hurt when time and time again the Deceivers fail.

I am, of course, speaking as someone who is a Believer. It is one of the aspects of myself that I equally love and hate. I love that I will forever try to see the good in people and give them chance after chance to redeem themselves, but it's one of the things I hate because it often gives me such misery and grief. But I know that I will continue to give people more chances in the hopes that one day I won't be disappointed.

If I were to write an epitaph for my tombstone (a futile endeavor as I will not have a tombstone), it would say:

Here lies a Foolish Believer

She got burned time and time again

But refused to ever give up on the people she loved

 Ah well, I suppose this leopard can't change her spots either.