Thank you for your candidness. There’s very few people, unless they’re trying to get the better of me, that offer such candid feedback. So I really appreciate it. I understand completely why you, and many others, would get such an impression of me, and I guess that’s been the struggle of my life. Getting people to understand where I’m coming from rather than what appears to be my motives.
I’m always surprised at comments about my use of language because like I said in previous posts, I don’t read that much. Most of the reading I do is online, and that’s usually articles of interests, blogs, or news items.
I am opinionated, but the motivation for being so is not as obvious as most may think. I actually hate being the centre of attention. It makes me awkward and self-conscious. But I love challenging people’s ideas and views because so few people take a critical view of themselves. We’re conditioned to believe that being critical is a negative thing, when in fact it’s the root of growth. In my opinion anyway. 🙂
I don’t strive for perfection. I’m incredibly lazy to be honest. So in my laziness, and my idealism, I get easily frustrated when I see someone doing something in 10 steps when it can be done in 2. Simplistically, that is what drives my behaviour and my attitude. It’s my desire to simplify things, to avoid unnecessary effort, and to do more with less. When we complicate things, we waste energy and create issues that take up valuable time.
I know this all must sound so clichéd, but the truth is that I have got death on my mind most of the time. So when I see people exhausting themselves over things that may be inconsequential to the outcome of their lives, or to the legacy that they need to leave behind (not related to wealth), then I grow impatient with them because I want them to focus on what’s important instead. At least what I have found to be important based on my life’s experiences.
I don’t like exhaustive circular debates, so I choose my words carefully most of the time because while responding to questions or criticisms, my mind is automatically jumping two steps ahead in trying to pre-empt what my response may prompt. So I end up explaining myself two steps ahead just to prevent an unnecessary debate. It’s difficult to explain really, but I think it stems from my work in the legal space regarding drafting of contracts between organisations.
I think it’s my exposure to dishonest people in the work place, and in life, and the bad after taste of dealing with them is what drives me to be so pedantic at times. It’s an arrogant desire to want to shut them up decisively so that they have no graceful exit from the conversation at all. But it takes a lot to push me to the point where I respond so callously towards someone.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t try to do anything differently, nor do I like to attract undue attention to myself. I just grow easily frustrated with people living unconsciously and I’m naive enough to believe that people in general are as driven as I am to improve the way they do things. So I volunteer my opinion or advice which is often misconstrued as arrogance. But I can’t help myself.