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butterfly blog
the bad post
This is a reminder to myself that I really do need to learn to think before I speak. It's a good skill to have and one that I apparently STILL do not posess with any consistency. The worst of it is that I seem to stop thinking before I speak with the people I consider myself to be closest to. Apparently I've ticked an awful lot of people off with my not-thinking, but nobody seems to want to smack me over the head with this information. Instead, it seems to get pushed aside & collected up until I just get too annoying to talk to and I'm left to wonder "what the heck did I do?" This is an extreme over-simplification of a lot of things, but I suppose it's a good starting point for adjusting my behavior. It's really not nice to say stupid stuff that can be misinterpreted because it doesn't sound nice in the first place.
On the flip-side, it's also not good to not point out to me that I'm being an idiot. I can't learn that I'm causing a problem if nobody tells me. And I can't apologize for hurting your feelings if I'm too oblivious to realize that I've done it. I need a lot of people to do this (tell me when I'm being dumb). My dear husband sure won't, sometimes I think he's more oblivious to it than I am, so I need someone to pick up his slack... but to also do this in a loving way.
Any volunteers?
Some of my problem areas are: Sounding judgemental, being snippy without realizing it, being too rigid/goal-oriented and unflexible, being afraid to apologize even when I know that I should and a very general fear of driving unfamiliar or unreliable vehicles to unfamiliar places and/or places without parking lots.
I'm well aware of these problem areas and I thought I'd been working on some of them... I have a few completely spontaneous and irrational adventures in the last few months... I even drove my very unreliable car to Pittsburgh in the dark, except that where I went had a parking lot. It actually resolved most of the fear about driving the unreliable car to an unfamiliar place, but I still won't go somewhere without a parking lot. And there was also that trip that involved the flood detour... lemme tell ya, though, never again will I drive into a flood detour on purpose. Then again, I also thought that I was trying very hard to not be judgemental, but I guess even just my opinion is considered a judgement.
posted by Amy : 9:26:00 PM
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