Emerson once said, "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense."
Beautiful advice... sometimes very hard to live by.
I try to live as honest a life as I can. I try to always be ethical. I try to treat people as I would like to be treated. I never want to hurt people, either their feelings or their self-worth. It's important to me that others - my friends, my family, my clients, my coworkers - know they can trust me. Yes, I am sometimes brusque, extremely assertive and straight-forward, and I oft times put people off. People don't have to like me; they don't have to want to work with me; but I want them to know they can always trust me to do the right thing - not the most expedient but the most ethical - and to be truthful with them.
I also want them to be honest and truthful and straight-forward with me. Because I hate deceit - probably more than anything else.
I take people at face-value, always expecting the best of them. I (perhaps naively) think they'll treat me with the same truthfulness I treat them. If there's an issue, tell me. Let's see if we can come to some solution. I'm always willing to keep an open mind and work out something that benefits both of us. "Win/Win" is my motto... even my license plate!
So when I discover that someone has intentionally misled me - or out and out lied to me - or tried to pull the wool over my eyes to her own benefit, it's like a kick in the teeth. I'd much rather be told the truth - even if it hurts, whether my feelings or financially - I can then absorb it and get over it. But when I don't get the truth, it gives me a sick feeling that is there every time I think about that person. What had I done or said, that the person felt he needed to blindside me like that? The memory pops up at inconvenient times and brings me down. Because I just can't believe that it happened - and why hadn't I seen it coming?
I want to forgive and forget. I want to finish the day and be done with it, starting fresh with another sunrise. But sometimes the sick feelings linger, eating away at me. I need to find justifications for their actions, answers to my silent cry of "why?" I want to go back in time and make it all right.
It happened to me this week. Perhaps they had a good reason for what they did - I wish they had shared it with me. We could have ended our relationship in friendship, as it started. But they weren't up-front with that reason; instead, they resorted to half-truths and evasion. Yes, I could have legally made them "suffer" for it, but I didn't. I wouldn't do that to someone. It's enough that I am feeling the punch. I can live with that... even though it hurts.
It's a new day. I just need to forget those absurdities and be done with the nonsense.
I'm working on it...
"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." -Potter Stewart
Yours in Smiles :)
Abbey
