Another Cut-and-Paste Entry
From an email I sent on 6 June:
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I had something weird happen a few weeks back. One of my part time clients offered me a job, at a good salary, and because I had other committments and couldn't start when he wanted, he has sort of flaked out. Disappeared. I don't think the offer is good any more, but he won't confess one way or the other. It has me thinking quite a bit lately, about people's motives, intentions, and integrity. He gave me such a hard sell, calling me outside of business hours, really putting on the pressure. I took the impression that he really wanted me... now, with what has happened, I think he just had a problem to solve and I was the most likely (or easiest) solution for him. In a way, he just wanted to own me. It wasn't about creating a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Which has me thinking a lot. I've really moved into that space, to really want to work with people where we jointly create solutions that work for everyone involved. Negotiation. Honesty. Respect. Creative brainstorming. These are the things I value in my life and in my working relationships. It all has me thinking that maybe it's time for me to refuse to compromise these things, to really hold out for good situations. It's got me thinking about what I want and what is important to me.
I really try to balance two things in my life... first, the desire to create what I want, to exert some measure of control in a way, over the circumstances of my life... and second, to allow life to flow, and to accept that there are times when things aren't exactly to my liking, and to understand that these times are really gifts. Sometimes, the contrast of having what I don't want really helps me to clarify in a new way what I do want. Sometimes, the contrast also shows me what I want is really different from what I thought I wanted. Sometimes, I get exactly what I asked for, and then realize it wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm learning to keep an open mind and look for what I can learn from each situation, especially the ones that didn't seem to turn out quite the way I had wanted. So, I'm sure that this time of being overly busy has been rich with lessons, some I'm aware of, and others I will figure out over the next weeks or months.
That is one of the reasons that I love the international news. I can see things from a different perspective, look at the world through different sets of eyes, see where priorities and conflicts are for other people, without having to go through the often slow and painful process of having new things happen in my own life. I feel like a funnel sometimes, like the news flows through me and nurishes me in some way I can't explain, and changes my perspective. But I don't realize the change or the nurturing until something clicks in my own life, until I see myself reacting against my own expectation.
I used to spend time with [edited to keep my friend anonymous]. What a great guy he is on so many levels. Our conversations touched me in a way that surprised me, and touched a part of me that I didn't know existed before then. It was a surprising and wonderful discovery for me, to see myself so totally different. At the time, I wasn't very interested in world news... and when I think of the conversations he and I could have had about what he knew... but no regrets. What we talked about was human and personal. I miss those conversations with him. And the slight discomfort of that longing is a constant reminder to me of the magic of living -- that none of us knows who we fully are, and that we discover ourselves in the process of living.
Hmmm... maybe I should copy and paste this note into my journal!!!!
Thanks for posting the bit about the Blog personality type test. I'm an INFP, and that matches other tests I've taken. A Jungian Idealist, yep that's me, and healer... why else would I post those embarrasing pictures of myself and track my weight loss progress online. Definitely the archetype of the wounder healer, the mythic Chiron.
I stopped in at my neighborhood bookstore cafe yesterday, and picked up a collection of design magazines, along with some others for expanding my sense of the world around us. I also found a wonderful cookbook, part of an international series, on Mexican cooking. I love Mexican food, but I don't cook a bit of it. Tomato, lime, peppers, mangos, cilantro... the tastes are so exotic and wonderful to my tongue. I can't wait to try some of them out. There is a drink of watered down watermelon with added lime juice. I'm so excited to try these things.
At the other end, I was engaged to a guy from the UK a few years back, and from him I learned to make Yorkshire pudding and Toad in the Hole, which remains one of my very favorite things to make. One that I haven't made since last fall, and one I'm looking forward to splurging on occasionally in the future.
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