thoughts on life # 7621

it should be known, before you think the worst of me, that I've never been a woman, and therefore cannot comment on them in the same way

There comes a time in everyone’s man's life when chaos envelops everything. You believe people see you as crazy or inept from some occurrence of events, you believe other people are lying or crazy because their telling you they don't know what you mean.

I couldn't tell you what the answer to those moments are, but what’s always served me best is to come to the table and give every side something. Yes, you made mistakes and exposed a weakness in the armor, but don't always give your opponents credit. More often than not they aren't even looking. If you think about it, we're all running around like mad, hiding our own exposures or chasing our own goals and making opportunities to achieve them.

Its only in the mad grip of obsession when we can start to smell the blood of those who've wronged us. And more often than not, those people will expose themselves as wounded by their own hands or admission. In these cases, silence will never serve you better, even if the accusations or slander is in our face. Sometimes, letting them say what you are shows who they are. People will hear, in the absence of truth and reason, the cutting words of a bitter man who couldn't take his lumps in life, and instead blamed everyone else. It’s been my experience that people see, at those times, attacks and think of themselves and their own interests and can reason that any man who'd say that to someone is capable of saying it to them.

Part of running a tight ship, be it an actual ship or a business, is walking the delicate line between knowing when to address something, when to let it address itself, and when to admit defeat but carry on. In all things though, if a man cannot be honest with himself, if he rationalizes, then his ship will go down in flames while he convinces himself that there’s a draft in his cabin.