Tag: assertiveness

#oneaday, Day 345: Leader of Men

I’ve never seen myself as the “leader” type. I follow orders well, but when I’m asked to take charge of something, I find myself thinking whether or not I’m “qualified” to make those decisions, particularly if they’re on behalf of other people. Now, I’m a qualified teacher, so in the most literal sense of the term I am qualified to make decisions on behalf of other people. But if you’re the sort of person who suffers a bit from self-doubt or a lack of self-confidence, then it’s difficult to make yourself get into a position to “lead” others.

Which is why I’ve kind of surprised myself with stepping up to the plate for next year’s One A Day Project. And also why I’m even more surprised that people—some of whom I don’t even know directly (yet)—appear to be flocking to the cause. Apparently either my word carries some degree of influence, or people think it’s actually a good idea.

I think it’s a good idea. Yes, some may argue that the more relaxed rules of next year aren’t strictly “one a day” in the most literal sense. And to that I say, “I agree”. But it’s a compromise. Those who do want to go the whole hog and commit to a post every day, I applaud you. (And yes, I am applauding myself right now.) Those who don’t feel they can commit to a post every single day, that’s absolutely fine too. Personally, while I am a fan of writing something every day and believe that both I and this blog have got something out of it, it’s not for everyone, depending on work, family commitments and all manner of other things. So it makes sense to relax the rules a bit in order to allow as many people as possible to participate.

And that, I guess, is what heading up some sort of project is all about—listening to a variety of viewpoints, weighing up the pros and cons and coming to some sort of compromise that makes as many people as possible happy.

I’m really pleased with the amount of interest people have shown in the new project so far, and I promise I won’t keep banging on about it over here too much. But I thought I’d just share the fact that we’re up to 24 participants (with a few more sign-ups in my inbox that I’ll be putting on the site once I’ve flown back from the US to the UK… boo) and we have had our first monetary donation to Cancer Research. We’ve also earned 153 minutes of crisis and suicide prevention services on behalf of To Write Love On Her Arms via ad clickthroughs.

It may not sound like a lot until you consider the fact that we haven’t started yet. (Those of us who are starting on January 1st, that is.) Hopefully once everyone starts contributing, there’ll be a wealth of content for people to enjoy, and said people will be happy to contribute their time or their money to the charities we’re supporting to show their appreciation.

So yes; I know that “#oneaday” doesn’t mean one a day next year. But that’s fine; it’s going to bring a bunch of people together to do something awesome. And it feels pretty good to be an important part of that.

#oneaday, Day 151: Lawful Good

I am Lawful Good. I play Chaotic Good whenever I play D&D because it’s the most fun way to be Good, but in reality I am Lawful Good. I don’t like breaking laws, rules, anything like that, and I’ll go out of my way to ensure I do things “properly”. I like to help other people, and I like to make sure that they’re happy and safe.

So when a temptation to do something from outside that alignment presents an opportunity, I find it very difficult, and usually impossible, to take it. Even if the action in question is justifiable.

I’ll present a hypothetical example. Let’s say you saw, I don’t know, let’s say a Facebook status message that riled you somehow. Perhaps you know it’s a lie. Perhaps you want to add something to the conversation that the person who posted it wouldn’t want you to. Or perhaps you want to say something that you know is true, but will hurt the other person. Some people would be able to just post that message, say their piece, whatever they need to do. But because I know that doing so will have consequences, and will make someone else feel bad – even though I’m not a particular fan of the person in question and probably shouldn’t care whether or not it makes them feel bad – I won’t do it.

Sure, being this way makes me a super-nice person. But it also means that things that potentially need to be said get left unsaid. Making snarky comments often doesn’t achieve anything, but at the same time, keeping things bottled up inside isn’t good, either.

I even find it difficult to respond to someone who insults me directly. You’ve heard the examples of the assholes in the street who think it’s amusing to yell stuff at me. One time I managed a barely-audible “fuck you” at the passing piece of shit, and nothing happened. Even thinking about saying that caused me a considerable amount of anxiety, though, as I felt I had no right to say that. Weird, non?

There are those who say that in order to get ahead, you have to be ruthless, or at least assertive. One of the steps along that path is saying what you mean and then dealing with the consequences when they happen; not refusing to say anything in fear of any potential consequences, most of which probably won’t happen.

This whole post is an example of overthinking things. The hypothetical situation above of course happened, and two people out of the, err, two I spoke to thought I should have posted the snarky comment that I really wanted to. But I haven’t, and I won’t. Because being Lawful Good won’t let me do such a thing.