Taking it personally
(or, Today's Internal Dialogue)

One of the best and most valuable lessons I've learned this past year is to keep things professional at work, meaning that I've gotten pretty good at not taking things personally.

Partner Man sends an email in all caps, electronically shouting: "SEND ME THE DRAFT NOW"? Well, dude, it's only my 3rd month of working, didn't realize you got priority over another deal I'm doing that's closing earlier. Got it. Won't happen again. Here's the draft.

Mid-level Associate emails in response to my query at 11 pm, "We should have gotten this out this afternoon but I guess it's all right"? Sorry, missy. It was foolish of you to promise it in the first place, since it doesn't give our client much info. But okay, you want it out tonight, I'll get it out tonight.

Senior Associate calls up and snaps "I don't know what your last email means. Why did you send that out?"? Turns out I made a mistake, Senior Associate, partly because I didn't understand what you meant when you said to do X, Y and Z. Oops. I'll correct it. Whatever.

The not-taking-it-personally thing is invaluable at work. And I'm starting to apply it outside work too, which makes life easier overall. Instead of worrying that I've done something to offend when my friend doesn't responded to my email for weeks, I think, "Well, he's probably just busy." Rather than getting hot under the collar because someone invites me to lunch as an afterthought, and possibly out of pity, I say to myself, "hk, you don't have lunch plans, do you? Well, now you do. Go forth and have sushi." After a moment of fretting that the cute-ish guy at the bar last night thought I was boring, I shrug. I might be boring to him, but what do I care about his opinion anyway?

So, all fine and good. I used to be so sensitive, and so sad, and now that I'm not so freakin' sensitive, I don't waste time and energy worrying so much. And that's good, right?

But then I wonder. Why is it that I think of things to write sometimes, but faced with my laptop, am unable to muster the motivation to express myself? Why is it that I have to notice first that I am putting off making plans for the holidays, wonder why, and only after pondering, figure out that it's because I'm afraid of the family drama that inevitably springs up around the holidays? Why do certain snippets of music or scenes from movies bring on mini-weep-fests? Last weekend, I found myself sobbing during Matrix: Revolutions. Uh, okay. Tonight, it was the scene in E.T. where Elliot entices ET into the house with M&Ms. Ummm.... yeah.

I guess I knew this already, and I'm guessing you know it too, but it turns out that you can't turn away from your emotions and expect to feel things when you want to feel them. The wall is ecumenical -- it keeps out the ugly little petty energy-draining negative feelings, but it also keeps out all the positive ones. And some feelings have a way of getting through the cracks in the wall at the oddest times.