FRIENDS.

 When do we cease being friends with a person & treating them as our work colleague ?

 This a question I have been asking myself recently.

  I hurt my friend last week by expressing my negative feelings for a person he cares for. It was not my intention to hurt him, nor enrage him either, but I did. My friend told me off, subtly. He took it personally, & I told him that I thought he was in the wrong for berating me, defending his friend against me. I told him that I would not be obstructed from expressing myself freely by whoever, including him.

 The problem was that I had worked under his friend, & he frankly treated me poorly, & because of his poor attitude I decided to leave my temporary job early. My friend had known him for a number of years, & so when he asked me to join him for this New Years Eve bash in London, I accepted. It was then he told me that the other chap would be there too. After deliberating the situation over the following couple of days, I decided to bail out. I didn`t mind so much as I had another party to attend anyway, but the problem arose when I text my friend & told him the reason that I would not be attending was that I had `utter disdain ` for his friend, who would be there. My friend text me back saying that he really could not see the point as to why I had to be so descriptive over him. After all, he said " you know he is a friend of mine ". I told him that I could express myself anyway that I pleased, & always show awareness to others. It`s just that this particular person I do indeed have `utter disdain` for & wanted to express myself to my friend so that he would be sure of my feelings. After all he did not think that it would be a problem as he asked me to the bash knowing the chap would be there. What it really brought up though was issues surrounding communication with my father.

 As I have matured I have been able to come to terms with how my father treated me. My home was not a beacon of honesty & love. My dad was not an honest person, & was extremely arrogant & neglectful. For many years I had to work for him, & found it so difficult to forge my own path. Only the last couple of years have I realised the route that I really want to go in. Realising this has been extremely liberating. So when I was presented with a kind of telling off by my friend, I became rather defensive, & then ready to attack with reason, logic & rationality. Because I have been able to see that my father was not any of these things, & I am, I felt that it was a case of morality that I was defending. When actually what I was understanding was that I just need to understand that perhaps a little diplomacy, & not caution, was needed.

Although it is far from an old pattern. I have been able to see that I am actually the complete antithesis of my father, when once I thought that I was the same. And I have have had little interaction over the last few years with human warmth, I have failed to understand others feelings. I have become to rational & moralistic. This is an overwhelming realisation for me. I have grown & moulded myself into a beacon of rational, logical behaviours. Like the Police Officer who know`s no other way other than what he has been taught over years of indoctrination. The middle way is what is needed now. A re-alignment of the swing of the pendulum. I have now gone too far the opposite way to where I was once before.

 I crave to now be allowed to re-join my career armed with this knowledge. It can only do good & enable others to see the light.

 I always felt pressured at school with algebra, when my father was good at it. But there is not one reason why I should be bad at it at all, other than that it represented my own fear. It meant sabotage. Being a brilliant mathematician does not make a person a rationalist, just a good numbers man. It does show the potential to be a rationalist; but on it`s own, it means nothing of the sort. So I dedicated myself to being good enough within the art of algebra, & saw that it came easy after I taught myself how to look at the sums differently to how I used to see them. It worked.

 Today I can see that I have become a rational person, & enjoy being one too. I think that I have always been one, but simply was not given the opportunity to be myself whilst under his guidance as a child. If one is constantly anxious, inferior then there is little scope to find the confidence to be a rationalist, for it emanates from the benefits of solidity, grounding, nurture & support.

  Over these last few years of dedication to my personal Alchemy I have grown into a rational person. I can see that now, & it`s helpful to know. The situation with my friend has shown me this. It`s pointed out that I am honest, & I speak as I see things from my own personal perspective. Of course, there is a time & a place for diplomacy, here I do not feel that it is needed, because in a friendship I want to feel & speak freely, not held up, or afraid to speak my mind. At work of course, it would be unwise to speak freely all the time, especially with where I am going. But in all industries it is wise to be contained as it is a completely different environment to being with friends, or lovers.

This has been an important realisation for me, & I am grateful to my friend for this unravelling of issue within me. Soon I will have to return to the work place, because I want to, & I think that it is beneficial to of resolved this issue of mine. Setting boundaries within relationships is incredibly important, & understanding that the workplace is an all together different environment, & not to be confused with one at home. This messed me up before, I am not going to allow unresolved issues around sabotage get in my way again. That`s for sure.