I bulletin board

I’m a nice person. It’s actually always been a goal in my life to be a nice person, and I feel like I’m generally pretty successful at it. I’m a lot more selfish than I would like to be – mostly with my time and attention. I’m certainly not perfect. But I find it pretty easy to get along with people, I make it a point to be polite, and I’m generally pretty fucking accommodating.

I feel like I need to remind myself of that today. I’ve been having to deal with a person who feels I am none of those things a lot more than I like to have to deal with him, and it can be very easy to slip into the habit of seeing myself the way he does…especially when I’d like nothing more than to just be able to get along with this person enough to at least just get the shit done that needs to get done. The problem is, getting along with this person generally consists of doing everything this person demands or requests without question…and that’s just not something I’m willing to do. I guess, in addition to being nice, I have a pretty strong sense of fairness – and an unwillingness to compromise myself just to keep the peace.

I think to myself often how life would be so. much. fucking. easier. If I could ever make this person feel satisfied with whatever it is that he wants. The problem is, that desire is never outright stated, and is always shifting, so there’s really nothing I can do about it. And it’s not really my responsibility, anyway. In this situation, all I can do is hold tight to a strong center of what feels right and fair to me…and trust that my own intentions are good, but continue to check my intentions – allowing myself forgiveness for occasional bouts of frustrated venting.

I thought a lot today about that power. The power of never being clear about what you desire, so as to retain the power to be dissatisfied with whatever you get. My tendency is kind of on the other side of that same coin, which I imagine is equally frustrating: I am always trying to desire whatever I get, and I’m pretty fucking good at it…but that makes me pretty fucking bad at defining what I actually want.

What I need to focus on while I’m dealing with this is not how I’m expected to behave, but how I wish to behave, regardless of that expectation. To not measure myself with a flawed ruler. To not pay too much attention to the person in the distorted mirror that’s being held up to me, because that’s not the person I am.

❤