A mirror darkly…

Talking to people, during the day, often offers up opportunities to put up a mirror in front of you. An opportunity for some self reflection. I have had many such occasions. Not sure why, but maybe it is because I am not very confident in myself and I am not really sure of who I am, so I am always searching for ways I can understand myself. One way I have found is to look at how I interact with people.

Every day I find that I am questioning myself and my decisions. Thinking, how could I have approached that situation differently? How could I have changed my behaviour? Was that really me? I had a situation today, where a colleague, more or less flat out accused me of stealing their work. Now, I know I am not in the habit of taking someone else’s work, project, whatever. In fact, quite the opposite. I am more in the habit of finding ways to get rid of work and get someone else to do it.

Well, for someone who is suffering from stress, feeling fragile and unsure of themselves, it may come across that a person could be taking work away from them. And this causes them distress because it compounds for them that they may not be good at their job. This is obviously an issue with the individual concerned rather than me. But it got me thinking abut my behaviour. Should I have been more aware of my actions? Should I have been more tuned to the feelings of the individual? Normally, I probably would have been, but as I have had my own demons to deal with of late, I have become very introspective. Cocooning myself, protecting myself while I dealt with my own issues. But that individual was not to know this. But at the same time, that individual should not jump to assumptions and conclusions about my behaviour. This is something I never do, so when someone accuses me of something, with very little due process, I get upset. Jumping to conclusions is not a way to cement a professional relationship or any relationship.

But there is obviously something else here. The individual is suffering from significant stress and needs help and support. And as a colleague this is part of my role. Obviously, when you are suffering yourself, it is difficult to see when someone else needs help. So, at least this serves as a bit of a wake up call to get my head out of my arse and look around. So, maybe the mirror is reflecting not so darkly…