I tend to avoid confrontation like the plague. While a lot of things annoy the ever-loving shit out of me, I generally tend not to say anything. Why make a mountain out of a molehill? How far will it really get me? Why spend an hour hashing something out when I'll probably be over it by then? (well, more to come on that aspect of it.) I really don't want to be "that person." I would rather let things pass in a peaceful way. Assertive is not my middle name.
And seriously, we all know at least one person who loves to get confrontational/say something about everything. Nothing is ever their fault, it's always someone else who is the problem. And those people? Are impossible to be around for the long term. It takes so much time and energy to be around them that you stop coming around; you stop commenting on their facebook posts (but you still find the time to roll your eyes at each and every single complaint; at least, I seem to find the time for it.) You avoid them at social gatherings and if you find yourself in a conversation with them anyway, you nod your head and look for the first chance to excuse yourself from the crazy.
The thing is, while avoiding confrontation is generally a good thing, I wonder how much the silence holds me back. I know of at least one relationship that ended partly because I could never really speak up about what was bothering me. I always expected (well, wanted) them to figure it out without me having to spoon-feed it to them (of course, it probably ended in part because they were/probably still are kind of a douche.) In my head I was always like, "how can you not know that it's not okay!!??? How is this not obvious??!!" It's kind of hard to keep up a romantic relationship when the trust isn't even there to say how you feel in the first place.
And it's not just relationships, it's my career too - I've really learned in the last year that I have to learn to be assertive and be bold in order to keep my head above water. I'm getting better, I suppose, but there's a really fine line between being assertive and being rude (or whiny.) I've finally figured out in one of my jobs that my boss will either be annoyed with me because I did the wrong thing, or because I did nothing about a situation at all. I think it's safe to say that it's better to make a hard and fast decision and have it be wrong than be wishy-washy about it. Really, at the end of the day, I'm not important enough to make the entire empire come crumbling down from one wrong decision (I'm not trying to be self-depreciating here, it's just that neither of my jobs really entail life-or-death decisions, so it's okay to be wrong.)
The funny thing is that my mouth got me into trouble more than once in my teens (and probably early 20s) I didn't get detention or sent to the principal's office often, but when I did, it was because I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I know of at least one teacher who gave me a B+ instead of the A I earned, simply because I talked back (and possibly questioned his authority a bit...he really didn't appreciate that...and he probably would have given me a much lower grade if he could have)
I'm not sure exactly what changed and why. Maybe the stakes got higher when I realized I had to support myself financially and I couldn't afford to mouth off to my bosses. Maybe it was in the years following my dad's death when I just felt angry and lost and lost the will to speak up. I dunno...I just know that I used to be a lot more bold and I want to have a bit of that spark back. The good news is that I find that the older I get, the less I care what people think, so I may be headed in the right direction. Many of the people I admire (my sister, my favorite author, etc.) are assertive in all the right ways and I admire them because they aren't afraid to say what they need to say while coming across as strong and intelligent (and not whiny and annoying.) I'm working towards getting there one day.
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