Search Your Feelings
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I had another discussion with the Chicken Lover recently (see here for previous discussion with Chicken Lover). He was saying he wished there was more openness and honesty around our mutual workplace. I disagreed.
I know. Seems to go against my new manifesto right? Well, sort of, but not necessarily.
I suggested that pure, unadulterated honesty was not a good thing, and that people weren’t emotionally stable enough to handle that. For example, I said, if everyone said that (insert random co-worker here) was freakin’ weird and told her that, than how would that be a positive thing.
I actually picked a co-worker who everyone did think was quite weird, and who was clearly emotionally unstable. Not only that, but Chicken Lover has been working with this co-worker with his crackpot new-age theories to help her (hasn’t worked).
Chicken Lover suggested that once that was out in the open, it could be addressed. And that’s more of his crackpot new-agey thinking, that if everyone’s negative feelings towards each other were just voiced, then you can find a way of dealing with them. Wrong. And out of someone else’s mouth, that sounds like a brainwashing threat.
But it does present an interesting conundrum to my manifesto. I really do believe people cannot handle unaltered, pure honesty. Either speaking it or receiving it. It’d be nice, but it just can’t happen.
At the same time, if we wait until everyone around us is enlightened and emotionally stable to be honest and authentic, then we never will be, and people around us won’t learn how to deal with it.
Here’s part one of my solution:
Be honest with yourself first.
No, the Chicken Lover did not get to me. This is not a crack-pot new age theory. Just listen.
For example, I get really annoyed by certain people. But instead of allowing that to float out of my mouth when I experience that annoyance, I should take sometime to think about why I am annoyed. Lot s of times it’s because something else is really, really bothering me and I am ignoring it.
Writing helps me get at these things. Freewrites especially. Lately, when I do the freewrites, I’ve been seeing that it turns into an argument with God, or at least, me yelling at God. Perhaps there are some unresolved issues there, hmm? So, I’m trying to address that. Trying not to ignore it.
Let me tell you, it’s hard to deal with stuff you’d rather ignore. I suppose that goes without saying, but I think it is an important first step in being honest with other people.
I had another discussion with the Chicken Lover recently (see here for previous discussion with Chicken Lover). He was saying he wished there was more openness and honesty around our mutual workplace. I disagreed.
I know. Seems to go against my new manifesto right? Well, sort of, but not necessarily.
I suggested that pure, unadulterated honesty was not a good thing, and that people weren’t emotionally stable enough to handle that. For example, I said, if everyone said that (insert random co-worker here) was freakin’ weird and told her that, than how would that be a positive thing.
I actually picked a co-worker who everyone did think was quite weird, and who was clearly emotionally unstable. Not only that, but Chicken Lover has been working with this co-worker with his crackpot new-age theories to help her (hasn’t worked).
Chicken Lover suggested that once that was out in the open, it could be addressed. And that’s more of his crackpot new-agey thinking, that if everyone’s negative feelings towards each other were just voiced, then you can find a way of dealing with them. Wrong. And out of someone else’s mouth, that sounds like a brainwashing threat.
But it does present an interesting conundrum to my manifesto. I really do believe people cannot handle unaltered, pure honesty. Either speaking it or receiving it. It’d be nice, but it just can’t happen.
At the same time, if we wait until everyone around us is enlightened and emotionally stable to be honest and authentic, then we never will be, and people around us won’t learn how to deal with it.
Here’s part one of my solution:
Be honest with yourself first.
No, the Chicken Lover did not get to me. This is not a crack-pot new age theory. Just listen.
For example, I get really annoyed by certain people. But instead of allowing that to float out of my mouth when I experience that annoyance, I should take sometime to think about why I am annoyed. Lot s of times it’s because something else is really, really bothering me and I am ignoring it.
Writing helps me get at these things. Freewrites especially. Lately, when I do the freewrites, I’ve been seeing that it turns into an argument with God, or at least, me yelling at God. Perhaps there are some unresolved issues there, hmm? So, I’m trying to address that. Trying not to ignore it.
Let me tell you, it’s hard to deal with stuff you’d rather ignore. I suppose that goes without saying, but I think it is an important first step in being honest with other people.
posted by deadwriter at 3:48 p.m.
1 Comments:
I agree with you. It would be a very bad idea to voice all our negative thoughts about other people in the interest of being honest. I also agree that we need to be honest with ourselves, and introspective, when we notice that we are annoyed with people. My negativity towards people is often more my issue than theirs. I can be open about my perceptions of what the truth is, but those perceptions are very subjective. It's hard to separate my perceptions and hangups from reality, and it's sometimes harder to separate those of other people who are being "honest" with me. I like honesty, as you know, but sometimes I think that my honesty is not really helpful, because it's just smearing more layers of truth and semi-truth around. Maybe it's about relevancy. The weird girl would only really need to know that people think that about her in a certain context. Until that time, why complicate the girl's world with information that she would find difficult to sort through?
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