Who knows you better than you know yourself? I hope your answer to that question is NO ONE. My recent trip down memory lane brought to mind another person from my past - a previous co-worker.
At first she seemed to be a congenial lady who genuinely liked people. In a short period of time I came to realize that she was a person like I had never ever met before. Her tactic was to learn as much as she could about a person then use that information to somehow gain emotional control of the person. It was quite amazing to watch as victim after victim fell prey to her insipid trap and invariably became her yes crew.
At this particular job I was a telemarketer so I stayed on the phone as much as I possibly could. So she got to me in a completely different way. She started offering me rides home and offering to walk with me. During our walks she would share information with me about her personal life. Somewhere during her discourse she would tell me what each person she was talking about was really thinking. My response was usually - that's amazing. You really know what they think? Before long, she thought she had me in her web. A situation arose at work and she, in all of her pomposity, announced that I was wrong in the way I responded. She even led a chorus of co-workers in a heckle marathon. What she didn't know is that I could not have possibly cared less about what she or my other co-workers thought or had to say about me. I was there for a paycheck period.
So, I continued to go to work doing my job as usual. She finally confronted me. She told me that my pretending to not care was not working. She told me that she could see right through me. She further said that she knew what I was thinking. The lesson I ultimately learned from this experience is that people who are head strong in their quest to find ways to make you their vicitim (for whatever purpose) are probably people who need you infinitely more than you need them which means you are the person with the real power. Armed with this truth, you have no reason to fall prey to the foolishness of others.
In joy,
Andrea
2 comments:
I would buy into what others did and thought. I'm glad that my life doesn't depend on their opinions any more.
Amen to that Syd freeing myself from the opinions was a very difficult, deliberate, and time consuming thing to do. How did you achieve your freedom for the thoughts of others that can be oh so enslaving?
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