Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – September 22, 2004

Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – September 22, 2004

Is This A Therapy Session? 

Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – September 22, 2004 – Little did I know when I started this writing project that it might end up being a year long therapy session. I sit down at my computer (mercifully I haven’t given it a name yet – but I fear it may only be a matter of time) and I write about personal memories, things that have touched my life, things that I find funny. Painful and enlightening happenings, people I’ve met or friends who I like, my experiences in business, daily frustrations, private struggles and the silly stuff of life.

During the process I let off a little steam and perhaps learn a bit about myself. Is this therapy? Maybe it is and with any luck, I’ll be a new woman by the end of the year. That doesn’t leave much time for me does it? I fear that I’m a work in progress and I’ll never be done by the last day of December. I have no plans to continue this particular style of writing into next year. It has been a challenge and then some. Words that come to mind are daunting, humbling, funny, exasperating and downright terrifying.

I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and if I wasn’t so downright pig-headed, I’d have packed it in by the end of January. I’ve long since given up wondering if anyone will care about this undertaking. I’m too shy to call it a book – that implies things like publisher, book store and reader and that ramps my anxiety level up to an extremely uncomfortable level. So seeing as this may actually be nothing more than a personal diatribe – never to be seen by another set of human eyes – I’m going to have a rant.

I had a tiff with Big today over what should have been a very simple thing to rectify – an upcoming lunch date with our new marketing group and our banker from Scotiabank – Nino. It turned into a “she said” – “she didn’t say” confrontation. I overreacted and Big zeroed in for the kill. She is very good at this and I know it, and like an idiot I still engaged in the conversation. By the end of the hour long harangue I wanted to hurt Big very badly with my bare hands, she felt justified in her position and I wondered how I’d allowed something so senseless to take up my time and energy. This is why I need a therapy session. Where in the hell was Dr. Phil when I needed him?

During our conversation Big told me that she, Dorothy and Sima are my friends not my employees and that when I can’t have my own way I get angry, that I’m defensive and increasingly intolerant and rigid. She said that I should be the person interacting with Nino (the banker) because I know him best, and that I have some deep-seated resentment against women. I replied that my deep-seated resentment was and is against stupidity and that perhaps I should be in a marketing group by myself and Big said “Maybe you should be.”

I was so angry when I finally got off the phone that I considered pitching it through my office window. Fortunately Big wasn’t here because she would have followed the phone in short order. When I sat back and reviewed the conversation I realized that the productive thing to do, with an unpleasant situation like this one, is to review my part in it, determine if there is any truth to Big’s side of the story and then move on.

I’ve thought about it a lot this afternoon as I worked on my real estate newsletter, and I’ve come to some realizations that I think are valuable. This marketing group may not be for me. I want to interact with a small group of people who are business minded, interested in web site and E-mail marketing, punctual, responsible, task oriented and intent on finding new ways to attract business. I have good business ideas in place already – I need to focus on ways to make my sales consistent, and in the process, refine and improve my existing marketing tools.

Big is right on some counts. I am intolerant and rigid and this mix of business people may not be right for me. I do not resent women, but I freely admit to being frustrated beyond belief, by women who can’t or won’t make decisions and who play the “helpless little girl card”. If you want to be in business then act like a business person, take responsibility for your actions, offer to do the very things where your weakest skill set lies and plan on performing beyond other people’s expectations.

Success in the real estate industry comes in one of two ways – connections (oh, surprise – surprise) and bloody hard work. My career falls right, smack dab in the middle of the latter category. I need to work hard – business doesn’t come to me easily.

I wish I was a laid back, tolerant, less rigid woman without a care in the world. I’d love to do nothing but shop, have lunch and spend endless days at the spa (actually no I wouldn’t) – but I could be a little less judgmental and more forgiving. These are things to work on as I move forward in life. So there you have it. My very own therapy session. I’m always happy to come to realizations about myself – I think it’s valuable.

What I find problematic is to participate in behaviour that is as trite and childish as that in which I engaged today. I just need to listen to the news, look around the world at real life and death situations and spend a nano-second comparing my inconsequential concerns to those of others less fortunate, to realize that I need to reevaluate what is and is not important. Therapy session over – lesson imparted – and hopefully learned. Big is left to her own devices and she can choose to learn a bit about herself from her participation in this ridiculous argument or not.