We humans are an interesting lot. We are full of intricacies, complexities, complexes and information. Remember as kids when we played "Broken Telephone"? I wonder if kids today play it, or if there is a form of "Broken Text". For the young ones reading my blog (as if!), this was a game we would play as kids where we would sit in a circle and someone would whisper something in the ear of the person sitting next to him/her. They would then pass it on and this continued until the circle was complete. The last person would say what they had heard out loud, and inevitably it would be wrong. Far from the truth.
When I was younger I was less confrontational than I am now. I remember when we would argue at school that someone would say "But X told me.....", or "I discussed it with Y and they agreed with me". "Did you hear about P?". Information transfer happened(s) often and continuously. And it caused much trouble.
As I grew older I learned to speak my (piece) peace. I also think it's a South African thing, and while Canadians are known to be mild mannered, even tempered, and apologetic while South Africans are not, I have met many Canadians who are extremely politically correct and proper, and I have met many that are more like me. I say it as it is. I say it as I feel it. I used to give a shit about how things I said impacted on people but I don't anymore. I have learned that this is my truth, and as long as I utter words that I believe in, I am OK with that. If you aren't, then you need to figure out what that means to you and how to act on that. Feel free to tell me, I am happy to discuss.
When someone upsets me I tell them. It's difficult for me not to. And once I have spoken, I'm over it. I don't hold grudges. I speak without fear of losing the friendship. When I am unhappy with a service I let them know. If am going to speak behind your back (and I do), then I will also say it to your face.
I work remotely for my company, so I sit in what I call a "bubble". There is an office filled with people and personalities, and other "bubbles" around the world. The majority of my interaction with my work colleagues occurs in a vacuum of email. I miss out on the personal contact, the comments muttered under the breath, the conversations in the kitchen over coffee, the eye-rolls, the laughter, the comerarderie.
However I think this gives me an objective perspective. I am someone that people like to tell things to, I think that I am able to listen and discuss without things becoming personal. I learned a long time ago that personal, in the workplace, doesn't apply. So I hear things, and I put stories together, and I see a perspective, but I am not there and so I miss out on the finer details and the gestures and the facial expressions.
As with any office there are politics. I believe the same happens in friendships, though much less as you get older because time is not in abundance, and neither is giving a shit.
There are people in my office who don't get along. This is OK because we are colleagues, not friends. But some of my colleagues are my friends. While I am quite able to hold information in confidence, I am also not interested in being the middleman. And so today I was faced with the situation of being in the middle of two who shall not be friends. And I listened. And when they were done, I told each what the other had said about them and what someone else had not said but should have. I did this without betraying confidence, I did this in order to jump from the middle, I did this so as not to be stuck on the fence and yet not choose a side.
Things don't always seem that simple, but sometimes they are. We get caught up in emotions and ego. Fran always told me to let go, detach and watch from the outside. When you do that, you see how things really are. When you speak your absolute truth, you can never feel bad. Because it's the purest form of the word, that can not be broken.
This post was written under the strong influence of wine. Nothing in the post is true, but it's exactly the way things are.
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