Voices in Your Head, Sweetie?

Another day; another night I don’t feel like writing.  As you can tell, that’s obviously holding me back.  Maybe I just want an excuse to blow my own horn.  I had set out to do eighty thousand words in eighty days.  As of last night’s thirtieth entry, I have over forty thousand. 

Maybe I just need to vent some steam.  It’s incredible; the amount of their personal accountability people will drop on your shoulders.  They will do jobs halfway, consulting the tarot cards to realize that you know exactly what you’re supposed to do for the other half.  Even better, you’ve told them how to do their jobs, but they still don’t listen to a word you say.

I know I’m guilty of not listening about how to do various things, but largely for asinine things like brushing my teeth in the wrong direction.  Which, by the way, I’m of the ‘direction doesn’t matter’ camp, when it comes to tooth brushing.  I’ve seen some very serious debates in my time over circular versus upper-lower gone on for hours.  These debates may or may not have been drug fueled (or addled).

 Human nature is as human nature does, I suppose.  Just because I wish everyone would take charge of their nature and redirect their lives, doesn’t mean they will.  Maddening – or saddening – as that may be, I need to just let go of it.

A decade of working sales leaves you unconsciously doing several things when talking to people.  First of all, I do not mentally undress them.  That lasted as far as the woman toting a KFC family pack bucket of fried chicken, and she was the only one eating it.  I do try to get around inside their heads so that I can see how they think; how I can drive the conversation.  I don’t try to get in the way of any personal issues.  At the end of the day, their problems are not my problems, and my problems keep me pretty busy as it is.

Years ago, I had this guy walked into a store I was working at.  He heard my exhasperated sigh as a customer left, silently cursing me in some foreign tongue (proper English, maybe).

“You can’t get inside everyone’s head,” he said, back to me as he played the Playstation interactive.  “If you tried to get inside everyone’s head, they’d have to leave a little bit of their mind in yours, and you know what that’s called, don’t you?  Schizophrenia.”

Crazy dude had a point.  It’s not on my agenda to go insane for your sake: I’m doing that well enough on my own.  That’s a thought for today – how often do we try to not just be in the position of someone else, but to also assume responsibility from them?  Do we really need to?  Can’t we trust that everyone will, to some varying degree of success, manage to live their respective lives within the means for which they’ve been allocated? 

These people that scream and claw, they just need to get it out.  The issue is rarely what they’re telling you it is: they just need to let it all out.  So my challenge to you for the day? – Let them.  Go on: let them get it all out.  Don’t be snarky or a smartass.  Kill their direction with a smile and an understanding attentiveness. 

They’ll realize on their own how silly they look.