Fumaroles and watermelons floating through the sky
Peppermint & cinnamon have stopped to ask for apple pie
Rollie pollie butterfly stops stooped atop a flow’red heart
While zebra looks along forlorn, wishing so much he were a tart
Bumblebees and bubblegum fill ears and hands and throats and pants
While apples cooked in sugar cane parade along in lavish dance
Shiny orange glimm’rs a trance with tangerine twist lemonade
All in the eyes of little limes sat perched atop bolts of brocade.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Friday, March 07, 2008
No more apologies
I'm a retard. This morning, I realised how much of a fool I have been over the past year & a bit, and looking back at myself, I can't believe how stupid I've been. Well, no more. The charade ends today.
This morning, it occurred to my by random chance that I have not really been letting me by myself. Why? Well, there's a wide range of factors:
•New job; trying to learn the ropes
•New country; trying to learn the language & the culture
•New community; trying to feel out what other people are like (though, to be honest, this one shouldn’t really affect the way I interact with people, but it does cause me to be a bit more reserved than usual—I'm prone to being shy at first)
•Huge responsibility; I'm directly in charge of forming the minds of 20 teenagers.
All of these are well and good; I wouldn't really be writing this blog post if that was all. Instead, there's this one last nagging one that deserves enlightenment. For the past year, it came to my attention that I've been sacrificing who I am in service of making other people feel more comfortable or giving them the appearance of what I think they want to see. I've been a social people-pleaser.
How'd this realisation come about? Well, last night, as I was out with a bunch of people, I couldn't help but notice after the second hour of conversation that there was no effort to include me at all. Granted, the location was a bit noisy, so the whole thing was very difficult to hear—in fact, I think that I only caught about 15% of what was being said the whole night. So, what you're probably thinking right now is something like, "Well, why didn't you try to hear better? Like move closer or ask them to speak up?" Well, I did. After several gestures of straining to hear, and after several phrases like, "Pardon me?" "Sorry?" "I can't hear you," "What did you say?" it became clear to me that nothing was going to change.
The conversation was centred around the opposite end of the table, to no surprise. At my end, behind me there was a raucous crowd of Thai people drinking, laughing and smoking away. However, even before this crowd came, the conversation tended to be opposite-heavy, and this wouldn't have bees so bad if the people at that end of the table would have spoken loud enough for me to hear what the fuck they were saying. But did my requests for an increased volume come to fruition? Nope. Not a chance. As soon as they repeated the last phrase spoken (which once in a while was directed toward me, and when I didn't respond, they raised their voices and looked at me quizzically), the general tone of sub-audible volumes took over, leaving me afloat in the conversational doldrums.
This, too, wouldn't have been so bad, were I have not been told to go sit at that very end of the table, so as to accommodate one of my associates' personal desires. And this morning, that got me thinking. Looking over the past year, it has become apparent to me that I have sacrificed me personal well-being in service of making others feel more welcome, more at home & helping others achieve their goals. In light of this, I expected that a certain level of reciprocation would play out, but it doesn't seem the case. Instead, earlier in the past week, when I mentioned to one of my associates a situation where their reciprocated well-being would have helped me out, the individual turned the other direction and began to make the situation in question increasingly frustrating.
And I'm tried of it. I'm tired of being the calm, unseeming individual who's bolstering the initiatives of others when they in turn show not even a bit of gratitude (much less reciprocation). I'm tired of being walked over. Tired of suppressing who I am to help others feel more at ease or comfortable—and THIS may not even be a reality: it could just be my perception—maybe I am just subduing myself so as to give people what I think they want.
And that is the tragedy of the story. I've learned many moons ago that people don't like a people-pleaser. People like individuals who are strong in their convictions, strong in their personality, strong in their carriage. Ergo, in light of this realisation that I've been retardedly smothering my own life, I've decided to give the world the finger and act as I please; true to self, true to image, true to who I am in Christ. No more of this effingly irritating subduction. The game is over, the wet blanket's coming off & I'm ready to shine in brilliant glory, even if that scares some people away. And if that offends you? Tough. Go cry in your little corner until you're big enough to realise that the world's not all about you.
This morning, it occurred to my by random chance that I have not really been letting me by myself. Why? Well, there's a wide range of factors:
•New job; trying to learn the ropes
•New country; trying to learn the language & the culture
•New community; trying to feel out what other people are like (though, to be honest, this one shouldn’t really affect the way I interact with people, but it does cause me to be a bit more reserved than usual—I'm prone to being shy at first)
•Huge responsibility; I'm directly in charge of forming the minds of 20 teenagers.
All of these are well and good; I wouldn't really be writing this blog post if that was all. Instead, there's this one last nagging one that deserves enlightenment. For the past year, it came to my attention that I've been sacrificing who I am in service of making other people feel more comfortable or giving them the appearance of what I think they want to see. I've been a social people-pleaser.
How'd this realisation come about? Well, last night, as I was out with a bunch of people, I couldn't help but notice after the second hour of conversation that there was no effort to include me at all. Granted, the location was a bit noisy, so the whole thing was very difficult to hear—in fact, I think that I only caught about 15% of what was being said the whole night. So, what you're probably thinking right now is something like, "Well, why didn't you try to hear better? Like move closer or ask them to speak up?" Well, I did. After several gestures of straining to hear, and after several phrases like, "Pardon me?" "Sorry?" "I can't hear you," "What did you say?" it became clear to me that nothing was going to change.
The conversation was centred around the opposite end of the table, to no surprise. At my end, behind me there was a raucous crowd of Thai people drinking, laughing and smoking away. However, even before this crowd came, the conversation tended to be opposite-heavy, and this wouldn't have bees so bad if the people at that end of the table would have spoken loud enough for me to hear what the fuck they were saying. But did my requests for an increased volume come to fruition? Nope. Not a chance. As soon as they repeated the last phrase spoken (which once in a while was directed toward me, and when I didn't respond, they raised their voices and looked at me quizzically), the general tone of sub-audible volumes took over, leaving me afloat in the conversational doldrums.
This, too, wouldn't have been so bad, were I have not been told to go sit at that very end of the table, so as to accommodate one of my associates' personal desires. And this morning, that got me thinking. Looking over the past year, it has become apparent to me that I have sacrificed me personal well-being in service of making others feel more welcome, more at home & helping others achieve their goals. In light of this, I expected that a certain level of reciprocation would play out, but it doesn't seem the case. Instead, earlier in the past week, when I mentioned to one of my associates a situation where their reciprocated well-being would have helped me out, the individual turned the other direction and began to make the situation in question increasingly frustrating.
And I'm tried of it. I'm tired of being the calm, unseeming individual who's bolstering the initiatives of others when they in turn show not even a bit of gratitude (much less reciprocation). I'm tired of being walked over. Tired of suppressing who I am to help others feel more at ease or comfortable—and THIS may not even be a reality: it could just be my perception—maybe I am just subduing myself so as to give people what I think they want.
And that is the tragedy of the story. I've learned many moons ago that people don't like a people-pleaser. People like individuals who are strong in their convictions, strong in their personality, strong in their carriage. Ergo, in light of this realisation that I've been retardedly smothering my own life, I've decided to give the world the finger and act as I please; true to self, true to image, true to who I am in Christ. No more of this effingly irritating subduction. The game is over, the wet blanket's coming off & I'm ready to shine in brilliant glory, even if that scares some people away. And if that offends you? Tough. Go cry in your little corner until you're big enough to realise that the world's not all about you.
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