Why?

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've realized that I'm over-committed in the responsibilities I've taken on and will be discarding some of them in an attempt to achieve balance.

I don't believe in leaving any decent and friendly group without saying goodbye. In one of those groups, I was there for one last gathering with the understanding that I shan't be returning. I generally get along with most of the people there but have found one particular woman to be unpleasant. Let's call her Mrs. A. It's also obvious that I'm not the only one who feels that way. In that last gathering, she took numerous verbal shots at me. I don't think she disliked me or anything as it was normal behaviour for her. I didn't return fire but it did get me thinking: why are people unpleasant when there is no obvious good return for such action?

It's not just this Mrs. A either. I've found one of the office administrators at my new job to be officious and petty. I get that that's just how she is. However, she's certainly not making any friends in the office; her brown-nosing isn't going to get her very far when the current group of managers move on to other sites and the people she's cheesed off move up into positions of authority. I'd give her a couple of years, max, before she gets dismissed from her job.

Actually, I think I do understand the office admin a little more than Mrs. A. Some people are insecure or mean enough to sling their power around, such as it is. Heaven knows, I've done it when I was growing up - I was by no stretch of the imagination a compassionate prefect at my school. It didn't win me many friends but I learnt a lesson from that. It took me nearly a decade and a medical crisis to really learn it, but I did learn. This office admin however...is pretty much my age and acting like she's in high school. That part, I don't get. It definitely doesn't do anything for her survivability in this economy.

Mrs. A confounds me. There is zero percentage in cheesing me off. The smart thing to do is to be nice to people leaving, or at least to not be so rude to them. I get that this is what she is but surely she must see that she's offending people. On the other hand, Mr. A is her diametric opposite - he's one of the smarter, nicer people around. Even though he holds his own against Mrs. A, most of us feel sorry for him. If she and her husband split up, I daresay that she'll find herself quite alone very quickly. I'm pretty sure she knows that but she's still barreling down this self-destructive path.

When I'm doing something stupid, and I mean really stupid, there's a part of me screaming for me to stop and reassess. In the past, I've ignored that part of me and gone barreling down that self-destructive part too. Recently, I've started listening to that part and halted what I was doing. I'm not successful in doing that all of the time but I think I'm getting a little better at it. I can't think of how many familial arguments I've had where I've realized in the middle of it that I'm just being stupid in pushing it further. To the one person in particular that I've done this to most: please come see me for a heartfelt apology. I can be really mean and dumb sometimes and I'm sorry.

I grok my own personal "Why?" situation. I've got a ways to go yet. I'm sure that all these other folks do too - I hope that people aren't that tunnel-visioned and arrogant. As strange as it seems, I wish them well. Their path leads to loneliness and despair. I've been on that path; there but by the grace of the gods go I. Nobody deserves that fate.