Listening to: Sympathethique
Costes la suite
Had to pop into office today for another subject, and had a little talk with him while we were waiting for his bloods to fill the little vacuum tubes that were nicely arrayed on my tray.
There, in the semi-sterile environment, with dimmed lights and steady hum of the machinery for backdrop, we talked of his wives, girlfriends and his present post of a big honcho for an automobile bigwig company.
"It's all about managing your expectations and priorities. Never settle, never assume".
His words, although simple, have been with me since this afternoon. I've maintained that as my own private motto for a large bit of my life. A simple thing to remember, but never easy to stomach. I've practiced it to such an extent, that it's now first nature for me to compartmentalise. We discuss, i take. A transaction, nothing more, nothing less. I'll only take something, anything, if it's been shaken into me; in the rare instances that i've given in, and asked.. when it was withheld from me i felt doubly ashamed. And now- i never make the same mistake. Flayed with the embarrassment of seeming weak, who ever said that negative reinforcement didn't make one learn was asexual as well as a frigid academic.
So now, sans expectations on others, and too many on myself, i stumble along. Raising my eyes to look at that passer by might be my undoing, and so i lower them again to concentrate on the road most travelled.
Don't expect. Don't assume.
Never want.
