Post by Honeylioness on Aug 6, 2009 12:09:22 GMT -5
A friend from the WIR NS/CS board where I hang out had the following piece on her blog this morning:
I was thinking today about how much we act in our day to day lives. We act like we care that a co-worker’s kid had gas at 3 a.m. or act like we know what’s going on with North Korea. We act like someone’s rude comment doesn’t bother us or that something insignificant is really an issue.
(Mainly a generational thing to me but why is EVERYTHING so freakin’ OMG, like, totally horrible and then, like, NOOOO, horridly unfair and Oh. My. God! with most of the under 30 crowd?)
The inspiration, if you must call it that, for this post comes from a co-worker I unfondly call “the actress” who decided some months ago to step up the efforts to annoy the hell out of Kelly. This started the day our hardworking, industrious co-worker was laid off and the actress started waxing poetical about how we all need to work harder and be better employees.
She was acting as if her job wasn’t protected by her mother. Which it is. The very next day she began to prance about announcing she was set to become a world famous act-ress! Entire days were spent pondering all the fabulous things she would buy once she hit the jackpot in Hollywood. She announced she would take as much time off as she wanted, thank-you-very-much, because this was her destiny.
A mere 24-hours after insisting we all needed to be model employees.
In the months that followed I have heard more of the act. Not just from a Z-list “actress” but from many people. Even myself.
It seems the only time we feel free enough to say what we’re thinking and act naturally is behind the wheel careening 80 miles per hour down the freeway, middle finger extended and obscenities flying.
What is fear that grips our conscious when faced with the simple challenge to tell the truth and mean what we say. No acting. No fooling.
Just tell that vendor that you don’t appreciate their characterization of your account as unimportant, let a friend know that it would mean a lot if they made time for lunch with you, inform your parent it’s not a good weekend to visit.
You, like everyone else, want to be different, extraordinary, memorable. What better way than taking a step back from the automatic responses that our mouths speak before our brains can filter and stop. Stop pretending to hate things you don’t mind. Stop faking excitement when you don’t really care. Stop investing in people and things that are unimportant and stop acting one way or another because it’s what’s expected.
How extraordinary would you be if you told the simple truth without embellishment and found, without acting, the things that matter most?[/i][/color]
It got me thinking about the differences, subtle or not, between Honesty, Integrity and Good Manners.
It may be the Honest thing to tell a co-worker their breath reminds you of decomposing skunks, but is there Integrity is being so brutally frank - and would saying anything cause more harm than good? Or perhaps here Good Manners should take precedence as you gently encourage them to take the breath mint you are offering.
I know that for me, and for a variety of reasons, I spent most of my youth and young adulthood NOT telling people what I really thought or felt. Because at that time I was more concerned with "belonging" than I was in my own integrity. Not to say I had no integrity - I did, but I did not want to "hurt anyone's feelings" by saying what I really thought.
I also had several bad experiences with finally telling someone the truth of my feelings - only to have it erupt in my face with bad feelings and hurtful words flung at me. So for many years I kept it all to myself and perhaps one or two close friends.
Gradually this began to change for me - I have gotten better about telling people what I think and ignoring the snide remarks tossed at me such as "Well - we sure do have an opinion about everything don't we?"
I think I have learned to phrase my words in ways that do not get other's defensive - and while I do still worry occasionally about denting someone's feelings - that no longer is my "out" for staying quiet.
Perhaps that is the other component of this equation - discernment. Being able to judge when or how to express yourself in an appropriate manner. For example - would I love to tell one of my supervisors that I think he is a wart on the A$$ of humanity?? Sure. But I resist because I need this job to pay the bills.
Although I have people in the building who seem to have no problems with spouting off to their managers. But having seen how they are regarded and spoken about at this end - I am not sure I wish to join the ranks.
So I guess I stay in this balancing mode of distancing myself when I can and not pulling my punches when my opinion is asked for.
Acting a Fool - August 6, 2009, 1:38 am
I was thinking today about how much we act in our day to day lives. We act like we care that a co-worker’s kid had gas at 3 a.m. or act like we know what’s going on with North Korea. We act like someone’s rude comment doesn’t bother us or that something insignificant is really an issue.
(Mainly a generational thing to me but why is EVERYTHING so freakin’ OMG, like, totally horrible and then, like, NOOOO, horridly unfair and Oh. My. God! with most of the under 30 crowd?)
The inspiration, if you must call it that, for this post comes from a co-worker I unfondly call “the actress” who decided some months ago to step up the efforts to annoy the hell out of Kelly. This started the day our hardworking, industrious co-worker was laid off and the actress started waxing poetical about how we all need to work harder and be better employees.
She was acting as if her job wasn’t protected by her mother. Which it is. The very next day she began to prance about announcing she was set to become a world famous act-ress! Entire days were spent pondering all the fabulous things she would buy once she hit the jackpot in Hollywood. She announced she would take as much time off as she wanted, thank-you-very-much, because this was her destiny.
A mere 24-hours after insisting we all needed to be model employees.
In the months that followed I have heard more of the act. Not just from a Z-list “actress” but from many people. Even myself.
It seems the only time we feel free enough to say what we’re thinking and act naturally is behind the wheel careening 80 miles per hour down the freeway, middle finger extended and obscenities flying.
What is fear that grips our conscious when faced with the simple challenge to tell the truth and mean what we say. No acting. No fooling.
Just tell that vendor that you don’t appreciate their characterization of your account as unimportant, let a friend know that it would mean a lot if they made time for lunch with you, inform your parent it’s not a good weekend to visit.
You, like everyone else, want to be different, extraordinary, memorable. What better way than taking a step back from the automatic responses that our mouths speak before our brains can filter and stop. Stop pretending to hate things you don’t mind. Stop faking excitement when you don’t really care. Stop investing in people and things that are unimportant and stop acting one way or another because it’s what’s expected.
How extraordinary would you be if you told the simple truth without embellishment and found, without acting, the things that matter most?[/i][/color]
It got me thinking about the differences, subtle or not, between Honesty, Integrity and Good Manners.
It may be the Honest thing to tell a co-worker their breath reminds you of decomposing skunks, but is there Integrity is being so brutally frank - and would saying anything cause more harm than good? Or perhaps here Good Manners should take precedence as you gently encourage them to take the breath mint you are offering.
I know that for me, and for a variety of reasons, I spent most of my youth and young adulthood NOT telling people what I really thought or felt. Because at that time I was more concerned with "belonging" than I was in my own integrity. Not to say I had no integrity - I did, but I did not want to "hurt anyone's feelings" by saying what I really thought.
I also had several bad experiences with finally telling someone the truth of my feelings - only to have it erupt in my face with bad feelings and hurtful words flung at me. So for many years I kept it all to myself and perhaps one or two close friends.
Gradually this began to change for me - I have gotten better about telling people what I think and ignoring the snide remarks tossed at me such as "Well - we sure do have an opinion about everything don't we?"
I think I have learned to phrase my words in ways that do not get other's defensive - and while I do still worry occasionally about denting someone's feelings - that no longer is my "out" for staying quiet.
Perhaps that is the other component of this equation - discernment. Being able to judge when or how to express yourself in an appropriate manner. For example - would I love to tell one of my supervisors that I think he is a wart on the A$$ of humanity?? Sure. But I resist because I need this job to pay the bills.
Although I have people in the building who seem to have no problems with spouting off to their managers. But having seen how they are regarded and spoken about at this end - I am not sure I wish to join the ranks.
So I guess I stay in this balancing mode of distancing myself when I can and not pulling my punches when my opinion is asked for.
