Who am I? Understand myself or others? I give up. I know myself in a way which does not tell anybody anything about myself. I am like the tide, coming and going, flooding and ebbing, sometimes quietly, sometimes wild. I am like day and night and the twilight. I’m like winter, spring, summer and autumn.
Am I flexible? If I want to. Am I stubborn? Sometimes. Am I kind and nice? If I want to. Am I cold and rejecting? If I want to. I can put everything in here. I’m everything and nothing.
Is it important how other people see me or if they understand me? It depends. Do I like you? Do you treat me in a way that I like? Am I dependent for example to earn money? In such relations I’m more likely the fake that you want to see. Some people better don’t ask me what I think about them. Oh, I can let everybody be who they want to be. I simply go away if I don’t like somebody … if I can. I don’t feel the need to change anybody to my liking or to change myself to be able to somehow like them. I don’t feel the need to understand people when my gut feeling tells me “Go away, keep away”. I don’t feel the need to understand, why I don’t like them. All I will find on such questions are assumptions.
Go away if I can? Theoretically I always can. I can find another job, if I find one. But there is no guarantee that I will find the conditions I need somewhere else. Even worse is the job center. They treat you like slaves, there is no way to say “I don’t accept these conditions.” You will be punished. So, be fake again. Be fake as long as you know that you fake. Do I like it? No! And I remember better times when I applied for jobs.
I could say, no telephone jobs, I hate phones in private, they interrupt and disturb me. Why shall I love the phone at work? I can’t force myself to love something which I don’t love. Ah yes, some say “Change your perspective!” I know myself too well to know that I can look at the phone from 1° to 360° without getting me to love phone jobs.
Oh yes, I always got jobs even if I said what I don’t want to do because I know myself. I know if somebody forced me to do what I don’t want to do regularly, I become aggressive inside and start loosing motivation and enthusiasm. In reality, they lose too. In Germany this process is called “innere Kündigung” something like “inner withdrawal”. You do your duty nothing more nothing less. If I love what I’m doing, if I’m allowed not to be fake, I go miles to be the best who I can be, I even don’t check the clock to count the minutes to be relieved from fake time.
And I don’t talk about ideal conditions. Every job, even if you work freelance has boring, annoying sides, things I don’t like but I can accept them if the overall conditions are to my liking. I’m not bothered to do the phone job as an exception for example because a colleague fell ill.
Be yourself, whatever it means … if you can! Don’t try to become the fake anybody wants you to become. Stop asking yourself why you don’t like something or somebody. Drop the fake into the bin whenever you can be the tide, the seasons, the nuanced and multi-faceted being called “yourself”.
The Wonder Called Me 