- The act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.
- The formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, etc.
- The condition of being definite, distinct, or clearly outlined.
I sat at a food centre for 20 minutes at dusk, looking at a questionnaire that contained 76 questions. I’ve done 6 months of service and it’s now time for the confirmation appraisal. It’s been scheduled for over a week now, so I should be mentally prepared for it.
But no matter how prepared we tell ourselves that we are, it never really is the case. Especially when it’s a defined process. 76 questions ranging from values and personal attributes, people, decision making, communication, leadership to control.
For 20 minutes, I sat and wondered what’s the definition of high, met and low.
This is the second time I am going to sit with my boss to do some benchmarking. The first time, he said I was too self-critical. Maybe I was. I don’t know. And I think he’s kinda worried that tomorrow I’ll be the same self-critical person he spoke with 3 months ago, cos he told me to down a few beers before I started answering the question. To quote him, “It’ll help you loosen up and go easy on yourself.”
Maybe he has a point.
She grabs her magazines, she packs her things and she goes
She leaves the pictures hanging on the wall
She burns all her notes and she knows,
She’s been here too few years to feel this old
It’s been a long hard month and an even tougher week. It used to be physically tiring but mentally challenging. The last couple of weeks has just been plain emotionally draining and I’m not sure I am up for another self-beating.
It’s always been known among those who know me that I am my own worse enemy. That my greatest fear in life is letting not myself down, but other people down. And so I set my own standards and dance to my own tune. Cos there ain’t another’s that I can use.
I used to blame it on my former boss. For always raising the benchmark and making it so difficult to achieve his compliments and praise. Now that I have stepped out of his shadow, I kinda realise that after a while, he kinda stopped doing that and it became all my own doing. Even when he had nothing to find fault with, I still felt it wasn’t ever good enough.
He smokes his cigarette, he stays outside till it’s gone
If anybody ever had a heart, he wouldn’t be alone
He knows
She’s been here too few years, to be gone
It’s tiring – to know for a fact that the possibility of having someone else know what it is I feel and go thru in my own head, is practically zero.
I get the feeling that there was a part 2 to the learning process that I never quite learn. And quite possibly, it’s the lesson that it’s alright at times to not achieve what one set out to. Maybe it could also be the lesson that it’s alright at times to say – I’m not gonna make it or I can’t do this.
And if indeed, these were the lessons – then yes, I have yet to learn them. For right up till now, my best buddy is still commenting - don't just sit there looking pained. Ask if you want help.
The trouble understand, is she got reasons he don’t
Funny how he couldn’t see at all, till she grabbed up her coat
And she goes, she’s been here too few years to take it all in stride
But still its much too long, to let the hurt go
I’ve done my 76 questions. And while there are some items that I know my boss would rate me as “higher than expected”, I have rated myself as merely “met”. Clobber me on the head as much as you want – but that is really how I feel about myself.
I don’t think that anything that I have done in the last 6 months (or for the whole 32 years in fact) has been extraordinary. And so, things that are considered to be “the extra mile” are just to me – the expected. Or maybe I have a huge chip on my shoulder that I just can't shake off. Afterall, don't you always hear me say - don't let this cool exterior fool you.
I don’t know when I changed. When did I learn to live by the rule that if we set our own expectations, the less we can be hurt by anyone or anything? Or that if we tell ourselves we’re not worth it, then it’s alright when it really is true.
I know it’s contradictory. To say that one should live one's life without any expectations, yet set up a gazillion ones for youself by yourself.
Maybe that’s why I think one day, I would leave this place – the place where everything and everyone is. So that I could stop doing that. I suppose if I drank enough and such, I would quite possibly come out loud to say that the reason I want to leave this place is cos I am tired. Tired of my ownself.
And we always say, it would be good to go away, someday
But if things don’t work out like we think
And there’s nothing here to ease the ache
But if there’s nothing there to make things change
If it’s the same for you, I’ll just hang
By going away, I could be someone else - someone that I have always wanted to be. Instead of living out the rest of my days in this ME that I've become. And if I went to a place there, then they wouldn't know what my tune is like. And I'll just be dancing like the rest of em.
It's a conscious declaration I make. Cos I know my life is in my own hands.
But until that day comes, I suppose I’ll just have to hang.
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