Archive for July, 2008

I’m fighting my Thursday. Initially I thought it was just one of those days, you know the kind Monica sang about? But I realize the main downer is that recently I have been repeatedly screwed when it comes to reciprocity.

From work to play, I’ve been coming up with the short end of the frukin stick. It makes me realize the importance of demanding exactly what you’re worth. In life. In general. It amazes me how many humans are scared to stand up and say “Muthafucka because I’m worth it! That’s why!” From getting monetary compensation for a job done excellently or emotional compensation for love done unselfishly, you deserve it. Period.

Too many times we worry about stepping on toes or rubbing someone the wrong way, when in reality these same people we’re worried about displeasing don’t think/blink twice when it comes to how we feel. Prime example: In the workforce from the day we start at a job we are brainwashed to believe that we are to be 100 percent loyal to whatever company we work for. We are pummeled, seasoned and marinated with Company Pride like a piece of flank steak. We start talking down about “our competitors”. “WE” and “OUR” quickly replace “THEY” and “THEIR” in our language when referring to the company, when we know we don’t own a gotdam piece of it.

Then one morning you walk into office after greeting Bob and Susan and there is a pinkslip neatly placed on your desk. You’re world crumbles as you begin to think about how the reasons they give you–with pseudo-sympathetic smirks on their faces–don’t measure up to be enough when compared to the years upon years that you’ve slaved for “your” company.

In their mind/eyes, however, even as you sit there in disbelief contemplating your next move, you’re already non-existent.

The moment we take control of exactly how much we are willing to give–given the reciprocity involved–is the moment we take control of our happiness.

Other people already know what you are worth.

Until you know what you’re worth, you’re worth nothing at all.

Today, my peppermints, assess your interactions.

Decide who/what is getting over on you.

Claim your worth.

Then send the muthafruka an invoice.

entretien à vous plus tard,

cyu

Today’s post was prompted by a discussion I had last night while annihilating two baskets of wings with my girls at the best wing spot in NYC. (I swear those wings will bring about the day the world sees me go from a 2 to a 12).

One of my girls brought up a conversation she had with her ex- the night before. She was explaining the “little white lies” she told him–all in the name of saving face–when he asked about her love-life. You see, she left him, so in her mind she could never have him aware of the fact that she was currently single and searching for “the one”; not while he had a girlfriend of several years with whom he was about to enter marital bliss.

It got me to thinking: Why is it that we feel we still need to impress our exes? The obvious answer would be: to show them what they are missing. But why? Why is it that no matter how the relationship ended we feel the need to rub our “look how great I am doing without you” all in the face of an ex? And what does that actually tell us about how we are really doing?

I’ve come to the conclusion that we only care about what people think when we actually give a damn. I can think of a few people who, if I were to see them today, I could give a shit less what they think about me or what’s going on in my life. But then there are those, despite how willing I am to admit to it, who can still get a reaction out of me. The encounters that make us wish we could paint the image of what we consider success and step into it for the brief moment that we come across them. (Like instead of a dude coming out the corner store with a quarter-water and some sunflower seeds he’d be stepping out of his luxury coup decked out in a couture suit at the exact moment that his ex- of five years bumps into him with her new man.) JUST to be able to have that person look at us and say: DAAAMN, I coulda been with him/her if I had only…

It seems the only time we want our exes to know what they are missing is when a piece of us (whether it be our ego, heart, mind, spirit or lower desire) is missing them–for better or worse. The great effort that we put into showing an ex- that we have fabulously moved on only unearths the fact that a piece of us is still standing there, right there, back in that relationship, right where and when it ended. Stuck. Unresolved.

Does the fiasco we put on to impress the person we once shared everything with successfully snatch us out of that space and time? Give us “closure”? Will you know you’ve succeeded in getting over them the moment you don’t care how they perceive you?

And here’s the brain-f*&k: How many people have we, for whatever reason, purposely not gotten over? Purposely kept as an open chapter to always have the option of a different ending?

The real question, my darlings, would then be: When is it time to delete the little white lies and type in a closing sentence?