Motivation is not manipulation.

I was “working” this last weekend, as in I was voluntarily giving my time up to sell t-shirts and raffle tickets to overly rich drunks. I was doing it because my friend asked me to, not for any big society changing reasons. I did it last year and it was a total blast, the people I was working with were amazing, and funny and it was cool to just hang out with them and joke and laugh, even if it was so smoking hot that I felt like I was a cookie inside an overly hot oven. It was a little different this year, it just seemed colder (temp wise as well, as emotionally), less fun, more serious. I know that a big part of it is that one of my X’s was there, and her friend. I know that her friend and I got off on the wrong foot from the get go, I think that he is not a fan-o-me for sure, so he said some stuff, and being the smart-ass that I am I had to give it back, so anyway there was “tension”. It all came to a boiling point Saturday night; we were supposed to leave one of the four of us inside in the shop for half an hour and the other three were going to go over to the salmon bake to help out. I was like hey why don’t we just close down now and all go over to help out. (absolutely a selfish reason, it was hot and nasty inside and I really did not want to stay) Well, because I shot my mouth off it turned from someone needs to stay into you(me, M@) needs to stay and close the shop down, so I did not like the idea, and was not willing to do it. So now the manipulation started, trying to get me to stay, questioning my chivalry, questioning my “man-ness”, finally trying guilt, as X’s friend said fine, I will stay, Matt, you go and have fun. So I was like OK, and packed up and left. I know that it was an attempt to make me feel bad about being so selfish. The problem is that I know I am selfish, and don’t feel all that bad about it some times, and this was one of those times. I surprise myself with my capacity to be selfless one day and selfish the next.

Perhaps it is a deficit in my own personal character, but I don’t do things that I don’t want to do. I am not saying that I always do things that I enjoy, look at me now as I freak out trying to cram a years worth of learning human anatomy into 11 weeks of the summer, I can work when I decide that I need to. This was not one of those times; I also have a hard time motivating myself when it is for a less than important cause. What I mean is that I don’t think I would put myself out for a big corporate cause. Why in the world would I sit inside in the ugly heat to sell t-shirts? I am (no I was) a VOLUNTEER, as in non-paid, semi-unprofessional, and not all that committed to the cause worker and you can’t expect the same level of commitment from a vol as a paid full-timer. The big picture is that I did not want to do something, and it was really pissing me off that someone was trying to manipulate me (in my mind) into doing something. I got offended, and left.

I am sad because I left and now I feel like I let my friend down who asked me to work, I am sad that I allowed someone else to take me away from a contented mental state, I am saddened that I was so easily angered by such a petty thing. Perhaps there is a bigger lesson here, I have been searching for the lesson that will put this all into perspective so that it makes a little more sense to me, but perhaps the answer is that I don’t get along with everyone. Perhaps it is that I am a cold heartless bastard, and I should care about other people a little more, or be a little less selfish. Or perhaps it is just that I should never ever work with X’s, I think that there is something to this last one.

M@

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. ~Morpheus