Any number of you have written to me in response to last week’s post, “Know When to Walk Away. Know When to Run.” (http://www.francescolejones.com/2014/06/know-when-to-walk-away-know-when-to-run/) (Thank you!) And while the general tone was upbeat, a few people had questions/concerns about my statement that “it’s not my job to educate other people about my point of view.”
They appear to feel this is a cop out.
It seems their instinct would be to get up on the barricades (or at least craft a strongly-worded email) Their thought process ranges from the admirable “How can people improve if you don’t speak up?” to the more dubious “I just need to get things off my chest.”
Both fair points.
My point, however, is that in the same way your real life romance will never compare to a Romantic Comedy (for more on this see “Don’t Compare Your Romance to a Rom-Com: http://www.francescolejones.com/2014/02/dont-compare-romance-rom-com/ ) it’s rare that your day-to-day business dealings will involve you going into a meeting with the person making your life….let’s go with “mysterious” rather than “a misery”…. and having that person at the end of your meeting say, “Oh my goodness! You are absolutely right! I am insert-adjective-of-your-choice-here!”
Which is not to say that if the spirit moves you, you shouldn’t try. My point, however, is that it’s also OK to say to yourself,
“You know what? Not my circus. Not my monkeys.”
Which, happily, frees you up to take all the energy you might have put into educating others/freeing your mind and put that energy into making your own, rather than others’, dreams come true.
Frances Cole Jones
