Day 116 - avoiding the straight forward path

Non-conformity has been a life goal of mine <smile>. I moved into my career but certainly not by an easy or short route -- and not fully due to my own choices. I am fiercely independent, and I don't take dictated directions well. I work well with others, but not with those whose goal is to order everyone around and expect people to blindly follow. I have always needed to understand the reason behind the process and I've never felt that asking 'why' was a challenge -- I just need to understand the reasons so that I can follow through. Sadly, most people find my request for a more complete explanation to be a challenge to their authority -- so I rarely get my 'why' answered, but instead have some very frustrated people in my surround.

So -- when I talk to others, I tend to explain the how and why of things that I'm trying to discuss or a story I'm trying to tell. Again, I find people are frustrated with the tangential nature of a conversation with me -- and again, that was far from my goal. So -- explaining why seems to make people feel that I think they are simpletons, when I wasn't explaining because I believed they didn't know something, but was walking them through my thoughts and contextualising the punch line.  From this, it seems that I can't make me or anyone happy when I try to communicate, yet many times I've been told that I am a good communicator. Go figure! <smile> My response is generally -  'why?' <grin>

Today's song fits with the lack of a straight forward path when talking with people and to my need to be a non-conformist and my reticence to follow orders. Enjoy!


The Long Way Around -- The Dixie Chicks