Month: March 2018

EQ vs. IQ

I was reading an article the other day about hiring practices.  The article discussed how people used to hire for IQ, until they learned that it was better to hire for EQ.  An example they gave was how brilliant leaders would rarely fail for a lack of IQ, but failed often for a lack of EQ.  Interesting.  The article went on to talk about how people are now hiring for LQ, or a learning quotient.  Now they’re talking my language.  In an age where your ability to acquire knowledge is worth 10x your ability to retain it… this is the age of learning.

But I digress.

What inspired this entry was the article’s brief comparison between EQ and IQ, suggesting that EQ is a better predictor of job performance than IQ.  I can’t help but disagree with that.  And I can’t help but think that EQ, as the general public understands it, has become overvalued.

Before the Justin Trudeau ran for Prime Minister, I remember hearing all these comparisons to Pierre Trudeau, his dad who had also held the role of Canadian Prime Minister.  The one which stood out for me was from John Oliver and it was about IQ vs EQ.  Where Pierre Trudeau was intellectually brilliant, Justin Trudeau had Emotional Intelligence.  I’ve been paying very close attention to the value of EQ since and I’ve noticed a few things.

I guess the first thing we should do is define the term EQ.  Google defines it as “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.” It’s the first time I’ve seen that definition and I quite like it.  Actually, I really like it.  Let’s break it down.  The first part is about self-awareness, self-expression, and the ability to control your emotions.  So often, someone who is highly emotional qualifies themselves as having a high EQ but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  If being aware of your emotions and having an ability to control them is part of EQ, that makes a lot of sense.  The second part is about being able to understand the emotions of others while handling those relationships fairly.  This is where things get interesting.

Emotions are part of the human blueprint.  To assume they don’t exist is incorrect.  To assume they can be suppressed indefinitely is unhealthy.  To be aware of, to be in control of, and being able to experience emotions seems to be the philosophy of emotional intelligence and I can get behind that.  Being able to understand the emotions of others, as a non-verbal language… I can get behind that, too.  Where I think the modern understanding of EQ falls apart is when handling interpersonal relationships judiciously.

I’m often criticized for being insensitive.  I’m also recognized as being very honest.

If you were presented with the option of telling someone what they wanted to hear and making them feel good about themselves, or telling them a hard truth and making them feel bad about themselves, which would you choose?

When people discuss individuals with a high EQ, they seem to be discussing people who are skilled at telling people what they want to hear.  It’s like a comedian walking into a room, being able to feel out the crowd, and then delivering the kinda jokes they want to hear.  When you hear what you want to hear, you feel good about yourself, and when you feel good about yourself, you tend to think highly of the person who helped you get there.  That’s what I see when I see EQ being discussed in the mainstream,and it’s wrong.

In the age of thought bubbles and echo chambers, we desperately need to move away from the people who are skilled at telling us what we want to hear.  Those who prioritize telling us what we want to hear are selfish.  For them, our long-term well-being is secondary to feeling good in this moment.  And feeling good in this moment almost always produces what they’re actually looking for.. a date, a sale, a vote.. and even a presidency.  And it’s extremely unhealthy.

There’s a 50 Cent song from back in the day called A Baltimore Love Thing.  50 raps from the perspective of heroin.  If you’d like to know what a relationship looks like when the other person cares more about making you feel good in the moment than your long-term health, that’s it.  And if you’re looking towards the other end of the spectrum, think exercise.  It always sucks at first, and the harder the exercise, the more it burns.  But the more you do it, the better you feel about and the healthier you are.

And this brings me back to my personal struggle, perhaps why this topic is of such interest to me.

Over and over, I’m labelled as low EQ because being capable of understanding and controlling my emotions is perceived as suppressing or not engaging with them.  Over and over, I’m labelled as insensitive because I’m unafraid of delivering the hard truths that help people the most.  Over and over I’m told that I’m not empathetic towards others because I’d rather motivate and inspire than offer blind support.  I’m done accepting those criticisms.

I am not without room for improvement, but I am not without EQ.

 

 

The Illusion Of Privacy

Every so often, I come up with an idea which I think is worth writing about.  When I do, I make a note and then come back to it when I’m ready.  This one is from December, but all the hype around Facebook and Cambridge Analytica suggested it was time.

There seems to be a fair bit of traction behind the #deletefacebook movement and I find that surprising.  But then, less so.

We seem to be in an age where we quickly look for someone to blame.  I can relate to looking at a problem and immediately looking to identify the cause, but there’s often a wide gap between the cause of a problem and someone you can blame.  In many cases, the individual being blamed, even when ‘justified’, is a symptom of a bigger problem that isn’t being acknowledged.  It’s why problems usually find ways to persist when you remove the symptom.

In a world where people are quickly looking to label the bad guy, I find a lot of people blaming businesses or technology.  Something something corporations are ruining the world.  Something something technology is destroying humanity.  I find this perspective rather challenging.  As far as I know, technology and business becomes rather hollow when you remove people from the equation.  In that sense, both are extensions of our own humanity.  Both are tools we’ve developed over time to help us accomplish more with less.  Understanding that these tools are a reflection of our own humanity, we accept that we can be capable of both good and evil.  From fireworks to gunpowder, from missiles to rockets.

What I’m getting at is that if we want to move past the blame game and start looking to solve the problems we’re facing, we need to look at the people.  It’s people who are behind the development of this technology.  It’s people who are behind the companies like Cambridge Analytica.  And it’s people who are allowing themselves to be taken advantage of by both.  So it’s about time we look at the people involved.

For the most part, I place very little responsibility on the tech developers at Facebook, or anywhere else for that matter.  Almost every piece of technology that’s made, is made to solve a problem.  If it doesn’t solve a problem, it becomes obselete.  Throughout history, people have shown a desire to be more connected with one another.  Technological advancements in transportation brought us from horseback riding to hyperloops.  In communication, we went from telegraphs to texting.  Along the way, we realize that we didn’t have to physically be in the same place to have a social interaction with someone.  To some extent, we realized that we didn’t even need the other person to be there at all.  Asian Avenue, Apartment 107, Black Planet, Myspace… all pre-cursors to Facebook and show a continuum of what we were trying to accomplish.  The internet gave us this great platform where we could connect digitally instead of physically, and it was a dynamic that we clearly wanted to explore.  Had it not been Facebook, it would’ve been someone else.  And to think that this evolution stops at Facebook would be be unwise.  Social Media wasn’t a lab experiment from Silicon Valley, it was a social evolution, started by, driven by, and consumed by people.  Facebook just happens to be the playground we chose to play in today.

The blade is a tool, indifferent to whether it cuts the flesh of your enemies or a dinner for your friends.  It’s the person who chooses how to use the tool.  Could Facebook have made it more difficult for Cambridge Analytica to do what they did?  Probably.  What happened to #DontBlameTheVictim?  Maybe it only applies to people..  Regardless, understanding what happened at Cambridge Analytica is definitely the fun part.

Cambridge Analytica was a firm who realized that Facebook could be used as a platform for modern political propaganda and did so with a high level of efficacy.  That’s it.  I’m trying to see why it’s more complicated and complex than this, and I don’t think it is.  Propaganda isn’t a new or foreign concept.  For as long as there’s been politics, there have been people trying to manipulate the message for the sake of political gain.  And America has probably used those tools more frequently and effectively than any other government in the last 100 years.  How much has been used against its own citizens and how much has been used in countries abroad is anyone’s guess.  But just as propaganda found its way into print media, broadcast media, and digital media, it would surely make its way into social media.

Cambridge Analytica looks like they may have been up to some other shady political tactics.  If they happened, it just strengthens the case that politics desperately needs to be removed from governance.  But politics is how the powerful stay in power so perhaps that’s too big of a topic to tackle here.  What is worth focusing on though is what Cambridge Analytica was able to do and why they were able to do it.  After having watched all the hidden camera footage from Channel 4, one thing stood out to me more than anything else – their goal of targeting people’s fears.

The only thing that Facebook really provided Cambridge Analytica with were details on the things that you liked and didn’t like.  The sinister part was when they took the details of each voter profile and used them to created targeted groups based on what they were most afraid of.  If you were from a southern community which had lost jobs to immigrants, it was ‘build that wall’.  If you were afraid of a change in gun legislation, it was ‘Hillary will take your guns’.  If you were concerned with political corruption, it was ‘drain the swamp’.  Whatever you were afraid of, they would play to your fears.  While most people know that making decisions from a place of fear isn’t great, not everybody knows why.   Turns out it’s literally the wrong part of the brain for making these decisions.  The part of the brain which governs emotions like fear, is different from the part of the brain which governs rational thought.  People are navigating this propaganda in an emotional state of mind instead of a rational state of mind.  Instead of being able to think critically and rationally about the content that’s in front of them, they’re thinking emotionally and looking for an enemy.

And this is where I let Cambridge Analytica off the hook.  They should be held accountable for what they did, but then, we should also be held accountable for what we let them do.

The first few times I saw a juicy headline on Facebook, I definitely clicked through.  Juicy headlines and misdirection have been around since well before the Facebook news feed so it’s not like I was being duped, I was just sufficiently curious.  But each time was a let down.  The headline was always better than the content.  So I learned to stop clicking on what was eventually termed ‘click-bait’.  Seemed straight forward.

Over time, digital publications like BuzzFeed and Vice started popping up on my timeline.  They were far more legitimate than the click-bait articles I was used to, but something else was going on.  These publications also realized they had tapped into fear.  The fear of being a racist, the fear of being a sexist, the fear of being transphobic, and perhaps most importantly, the fear of being on the wrong side of a movement which seemed to be based on the virtuous pursuit of equality.  Their approach was more nuanced than Cambridge Analytica.  Instead of pushing raw propaganda to their audience, these digital publications started editing interviews or not properly sourcing articles, looking to craft a narrative which their audience was hungry for.  They were more interested in providing a narrative which made you feel good about what you already thought.  When you think you have the moral high ground, confirmation bias can be a dangerous thing.

But not everyone fell for it.

Not everyone took Jordan Peterson’s Vice interview at face value.  Not everyone liked or shared memes saying ‘The South Will Rise Again’.  Not everyone saw a comment section where everyone was agreeing with them and jumped right in.  Not everyone avoided a perspective that challenged their own.  And for those who did debate, not everyone approached it as a battle of them versus us.  Some of us couldn’t help but look at it as us versus the problem.

The problem isn’t privacy.  The problem isn’t Facebook.  The problem isn’t even Cambridge Analytica or the shady politicians they help put in positions of power.  The problem is us.

The problem is us.

When tools stop working, people stop using them.  Propaganda is the tool, and it will be used as long as we keep letting it work.  If we #deletefacebook, I can all but guarantee that this propaganda will follow us whichever social media channel we choose to spend those hours.  If we put the team at Cambridge Analytica behind bars, I can all but guarantee that another organization will take its place.  So why is our reaction still to place blame instead of facing the reality that this is about accountability.

If you think that sharing information about yourself makes you a better target for people looking to take advantage of you, welcome to the world.  But there’s hope.. and perhaps things are darkest before dawn.

I’ve learned to live my life like an open book.  I’ve abandoned the illusion of privacy.  I understand that information is more valuable when fewer people have it, but I also understand that knowledge is most valuable when everyone has it.  Digging deep on why people value privacy, it almost always comes back to a fear of what others will do with their private information.  So I choose to live without a fear of what others would do if they knew everything about me.

And – it – is – glorious!

I really couldn’t care less if Facebook showed to the public: my health records, my genealogy, my personal finances, my relationship history, purchasing behaviour… all of it.  To some extent, I wish they would.  I would gladly take that risk to try and demonstrate that transparency isn’t itself a risk.  In reality, our ability to share more information with one another has been at the core of every big leap forward our species has taken.  From a spoken language, to a written language, to the printing press, to the internet.  We just seem to have momentary lapses in judgement where we’re afraid of what will happen when only some of us can access that information.

We’ve now arrived at a point where between Facebook, Google, Apple and the NSA, there isn’t much that isn’t known about us.  The data is already being collected and unless you’re keen to go live off the grid, it won’t stop.  Who gets access to that data is largely out of our control.  There will always be bad actors with innovative ideas on how to abuse that dynamic… which means we either have to accept that we’re screwed, or find a way to rise above it.  I choose to rise above it.

My choice is that when someone takes the time to learn about me, and to use that information to take advantage of me, I’m prepared.  Not only am I prepared to be critical of the information I’m being presented with, I’m also prepared to be critical of my own actions if I allow myself to be misled.  It’s not always easy and I’m not always perfect, but when you let go of right and wrong and prioritize the truth, seeing through the noise becomes much easier.

I think that everyone’s life will be impeded by dishonesty and misdirection at some point, but I think it’s worth considering that it’s our tendency to be dishonest with ourselves which impedes our progress most.  A fear of how others might perceive us and how that might impact our lives.  But what happens when we let that fear guide us?  What happens when everyone had the ability to project to the world what they thought the world wanted of us?  Social Media gave us that ability and we’ve used it to create noise.  It’s a feedback loop of confusion where people struggle to understand the disconnect between how we present ourselves and who we really are.  And the closer we get to facing the truth, the louder we yell ‘Privacy!’

Or we could just let go.  When I imagine a world that has abandoned the premise of privacy, I see a world which has embraced the value of transparency.  I see a world that has truly realized the value of honesty.  A world where every piece of information is always available to every person.  I can’t help but think about that being the ultimate equalizer.

 

When the only thing that looks the way you wanted it to is your LinkedIn profile

A few days ago, a good friend sent me the ‘Corporate Fuckboi Starter Pack’.  2 years ago, I would’ve checked off just about every god damn box on that list.  I wasn’t big on happy hours or energy drinks, but the rest was close enough.  On the surface, things looked good.  They looked a lot like my LinkedIn profile.

I used to joke around and say that on paper, I was the guy that every girl’s parents hoped they would bring home:  Nice guy, clean cut, university educated, good job, bright future, etc., etc.  The rest was a bit complicated.

I think I grew up with the wrong idea about personal and professional development.  Rather than looking at it like an exploratory exercise or a journey to be enjoyed, I looked at it like a race that I was supposed to win.  I would pick a path based on what those around me respected most.  It rarely had anything to do with who I was, and everything to do with how high of a bar I could set for myself. And I committed myself to getting there faster than anyone else.  In the process, I learned to prioritize income, status, resources, and eventually, making a positive impact in the world.

Part of that competitive effort was building the kind of track record which would allow me to compete at the higher levels.  Enter LinkedIn.  Between my volunteer and professional efforts since 2009, my resume now read Branch Manager, Director, Director, President, Director, Investment Advisor, Vice President, Vice President.  Had I told a younger me that this is what my resume would look like at 32, he would’ve been pumped.  Would he believe me if I told him that it’s all bullshit?

What if I told a younger me that every minute spent manufacturing this impression of who I thought I was supposed to be, was a minute wasted?  Not because it didn’t get me ahead.  But instead, because it held me back.

I often think about what would’ve happened to me had things played out differently at the bank.  I was on pace to earn a 7 figure income by my mid-30s.  I was very good at my job.  My clients were very appreciative of my efforts.  Income, status, making the world a better place for my clients and then having the ability to do a fair bit of philanthropy?  That was the plan… doesn’t sound so bad does it?

But that person isn’t me.  It almost was.  Maybe it still is in a parallel universe.  But it isn’t me now.  My path will be more difficult.  My path will be more interesting.  My path will not be defined by milestones on my LinkedIn resume.  I’ve lost all interest in becoming what other people expect of me.

Trying to become the best version of what others expected of me is what got me here.  That and my competitive drive to do it better than anyone else.  I think the competitive drive is baked into my DNA so my sincerest apologies for everyone who has to deal with that.  But now, it’s time to match that drive with becoming the best version of what I expect from myself.

So what do I expect from myself?  And this is where I can’t help but pull in data from all around me.  What do my friends expect from me?  What about my little sister?  What would my dad expect from me if he was still alive?  What does the world expect from me?  I am fundamentally connected to the universe around me.  When I drop, they ripple.  Those ripples are a reflection of what I am and how I behave, but it’s incredibly hard to reverse engineer that understanding.  And even if I could, would they just reflect the giant question mark that I’ve already hung over my own head?  Or maybe I’m going about it all wrong.  Maybe there’s a different approach…

I’m starting to see these inflection points in my life where things could’ve gone very differently.  I can see an alternate reality in which I’d probably already be married.  I can see an alternate reality in which I was still at the bank.  I can see an alternate reality in which I’m no longer living in the city I grew up in.  And the variables which would’ve led to each were largely out of my control.  So how much control do I really have?

Or maybe it’s not about control.  Maybe it’s about awareness.

Maybe it’s not about choosing a future, and forcing it into reality.  Maybe it’s about understanding where the future is headed, and being aware of your place in all of it.  Maybe it’s about understanding your path more than choosing it.

My LinkedIn profile is an example of someone who thought they knew more than they did and a person who thought they could force a possible future into reality.  That person feels like a dummy.  Moving forward, I’m looking forward to seeing how my LinkedIn resume develops as a reflection of what I find most interesting and engaging.  If I’m fortunate, I’ll find a way to live the rest of my life like that.

Walking Through Life with the Confidence of a Honey Badger

Several years ago, I watched ‘The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger” video.  As entertaining as that video was, it was also the first time I had really seen a Honey Badger in action.  King Cobras, bees, jackals.. The Honey Badger did not give a shit.

Last week, I found out that the skin of a Honey Badger was so durable, that it could withstand a machete, arrows, and spears.  I suppose there can be some real value in having thick skin.  And off my mind went…

I read a book a couple years ago which discussed the concept of not taking anything personally.  The idea is that whatever someone was saying about you or to you, was a reflection of how they were experiencing their reality, more than it was a reflection of you.  If a random stranger yelled a racial slur at you, there’s a good chance that outburst had more to do with them than it did with you.  Even if that random stranger said something flattering, the premise is the same.  The goal is to understand why something is being said, rather than to take what is being said at face value.

I think there’s a lot of wisdom in this approach.  There are times where someone paid me a compliment that I really enjoyed hearing, and instead of understanding why they had paid me a compliment, I accepted it as a true statement.  Later, I would discover that I had been misled, not because the other person was malicious in their intentions, but because I misunderstood their perspective or what they were trying to communicate.  If your priority is to have an accurate understanding of the world, you need to be mindful of the prejudice and bias of how others see the world – even when it’s in your favor.

While I appreciate how this approach has helped keep my ego in check, it’s arguably most effective as a defensive measure.  While I’m not perfect, I do my best to walk through life without fear, anger, or hate.  And I’m getting pretty darn good at it.  How?  I walk through life with the confidence of a Honey Badger.

I wasn’t born with thick skin.  These callouses were earned.  A lot of it was scar tissue.

I entered into adulthood understanding that sensitivity was not always a strength.  Being sensitive worked against me more often that it worked in my favor because a high degree of sensitivity would bypass my ability to think about things rationally – and I would just react.  More often than not, these reactions were extremely counter-productive.  I had to learn to handle things differently.

In my 20s, I learned the value of rational thought.  Emotions and sensitivity became something to control, not something which I would let control me.  Someone could call me the meanest thing they could come up with, and I’d be more likely to end up at a point of compassion than of anger.  I would also have more confidence in my ability to turn that person into a friend than an enemy.  And even if I couldn’t make any progress with that individual, I could move on from the situation knowing that I handled the situation the best I could and that I may have created an opening for someone else down the road.  There was something enlightened about this approach, and yet it left me feeling invincible.

I now walk through life with the confidence of a Honey Badger, knowing that there’s very little that others can do to hurt me.  And it’s changed the way I see the world.  Without fear, there is no hate.  Without hate, there is no anger.  Without fear, hate, or anger, Love is a much more natural state of mind.  Walking through life, ready to love… I can’t help but think this is a far more productive approach than walking through life ready to fear.

Now in my 30s, I’m trying to incorporate a more balanced approach, inclusive of sensitivity and emotions.  These days, I understand sensitivity to be like a dial on an instrument which collects data. If you turn the dial to zero, then you’ll collect no new information and you might as well not have the instrument at all.  If you turn the dial on the instrument to 100, you better have the ability to process all that information accurately.  I suspect that most people have a hard time adjusting that dial themselves.  I’ve seen a lot of men out there who have set that dial as low as possible and go through life too insensitive to notice the emotional nuances of those around them.  I’ve also seen a lot of women out there who have their dial set rather high, and go through life overly sensitive to the actions and words of those around them.  I doubt either is healthy.

A thick skin doesn’t make you insensitive to the world around you.  A thick skin is the difference between someone wanting to hurt you and someone being able to hurt you.  And when you realize that this dynamic exists entirely in your head, as an understanding of how the world works, it really does stand out to me as something special.  Imagine a world, full of people who are never offended, never angry, never fearful.  That world often exists inside my head… but then I venture out into the real world and I’m reminded of how much fear, hate, and despair exists in the world.

I’m not entirely sure how to navigate what comes next…  But I do know how I’ll carry myself in the process.

 

Back from the Depths

Back in December, I decided that enough was enough.  I had spent so much time in a holding pattern with the important parts of my life… waiting for key events to launch me back into the state of mind I enjoyed most.  I knew it wasn’t the best approach I could take, but I was smoking so much weed that I lacked the motivation to break that routine.  Until I started thinking more about Max.

Max was an ex-girlfriend from a few years ago.  We broke up because she was consumed with the idea of leaving a city she had never left and having a chance to explore a world she had never seen.  I’m glad I didn’t try to hold her back from that.

Last year, my whole world came crashing down and I was fortunate enough to have the time and space to reflect on all that had led up to that moment.  For me to understand all that had happened, I needed to be able to see through the noise.  The noise of the outside world, the noise of those who knew me, and even the noise of what I would tell myself.  To truly understand all that had happened, I had to prioritize the truth above all else.  What I found, opened my eyes in a way they had never been opened.

It was through that experience, that I learned to see Max in a much different light.  I thought I had always respected and appreciated her… but I’m not so sure anymore.  At least not in the way it mattered.  Back then, it was about what she meant to me.  Now it has much less to do with me, and much more to do with having a deeper understanding of who she was, and just being in awe of it.

One of the most important things I had learned about myself last year was that I needed to stop trying to force things into reality.  In many ways, it feels like I’ve spent most of my life swimming against the current.  When things got easy, I’d find ways to make them hard.  Many of my life’s accomplishments have been defined by fighting for every inch.  I think there’s a time and a place to fight for what you love, but I have no interest in living a life defined by conflict.  Nor do I have any interest in living a life defined by milestones, or accomplishments, or any other tangible metric.  I realized I wanted to live my life honestly, fearlessly, and with an open mind… and let the universe handle the rest.  And that’s when I couldn’t get Max out of my mind.  She lived by those virtues more so than anyone I’ve ever known.  In some sense, she had become my north star.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, what if we had another shot?  The first thing that came to mind was that I didn’t deserve it.  It was nice that I had gained a deeper appreciation for who she was, but I’d be embarrassed to reintroduce her to the rest of me.  Enough was enough.

I decided that even if it didn’t end up being her, she had set the bar.  For me to be with someone like her, I needed to be… better.  So I stopped smoking weed.  Started training twice a day, 6 days a week.  Started reading a lot more.  Started writing a lot more.  I was still in a holding pattern with my career, but I was determined to break that holding pattern for everything else.  It felt awesome.  So I decided to send her a note.  It was a YouTube video, on Christmas day, apologizing for my mid-steps and thanking her for all that she had inspired.

I didn’t send it expecting a response, but I knew it was likely.  It arrived about a month later and it left me with mixed emotions.  She was surprised, but happy to hear from me.   She said some kind things and then asked if I was up for a call, hoping we could have a real conversation.  I responded later that day saying I would be happy to make the time.  Then radio silence.

A week later, I separated my shoulder playing basketball.  The pain was pretty bad for the first week, enough to keep me from sleeping.  So back to cannabis I went.  Still nothing from Max.

A week after that, Facebook reminded me that it was an old fling’s birthday.  We’ll call her Mia.  I sent her a cake emoji, she sent me a cheers emoji, and we started texting for a bit.  We were both big into superhero movies so I asked if she wanted to go see Black Panther.  She was all for it.  Neither of us had been on a date in a year so we figured maybe this was what we both needed.  There was certainly a part of me that thought if I was going on a real date with a real girl, it would be easier to understand that Max probably wasn’t a real option.  Or maybe I was just hedging my bets on what was looking more and more like a disinterested Max.

Then Mia flaked out and went radio silent.  It’s why we stopped dating the first time, so I was tempted to write her off again.  Instead, I told her no hard feelings, that I hoped she was ok, and that if she ever wanted to let me in, I was curious to know why she was like this from time to time.   She apologized, said she wasn’t trying to be flaky but it was a combination of being really busy and a little awkward around me.  I asked her what she thought I should do.  She asked why I wanted to reconnect, so I told her.  She was into it, said we should probably catch up, and conceded with a smile that this was the original plan.

At this point I still hadn’t heard from Max, and I think my first reaction was being annoyed.  But I’m better than that.  Even if it had been a month, I knew she was likely busy, and I needed to be ok with not being a priority.  But I couldn’t help but reach out, so I asked what was on her mind.

She responded shortly after, saying that she was dealing with a few things and then offered up a rather disheartening email.  Knowing that she still cared about me and always being honest, she told me what she really thought about the video I had sent her.  In the video, I told her that I was on a new path, and that she was the only one who I knew who had the courage and ability to walk that path beside me and not behind me.  I was alluding to a path defined by the journey, not the destination.  A path defined by a compass of honesty, fearlessness, and open-mindedness, not milestones like income or assets.  It was a path I thought she was already on.  She took it as me thinking of her as an accessory to a path which I was taking.  It was frustrating to be misunderstood like that.  But I had to appreciate that her idea of who I was, was largely influenced by the person I was when we dated.  And maybe I was a bigger ass than I realized.

Truth is, as frustrating as that email was, it let me know that she was still exactly who I hoped she was.  She was brutally honest.  Talked about how what she wanted in a partner was a true equal.  Said that she could still see growth in me and was really happy for how far I had come.  She also apologized for taking so long to reply, but said it was a tough email to write because of how much she cared for me.  She wrapped up by saying that she was about to spend the next 10 days in Sri Lanka with some free time if I wanted to chat.

A couple more emails went back and forth and things were positive.  I could tell that she was trying to balance a few different thoughts and emotions, on top of all that she was dealing with in her in life.  If I were to guess what those thoughts and emotions were, I’d guess a lingering sense of disappointment from letting her down in our relationship, a healthy skepticism of where this was all coming from, and a genuine interest in my well-being.  She gave me her new number and suggested we chat on whatsapp.  So I did and we did.

Within the first few messages, I told her that I still wanted to respond to her last email.  She was still making assumptions based on who I was, and I was so eager to show her who I had become.  She welcomed the email, but didn’t respond to it.  What is it with people and radio silence?  Is it a girl thing?  A dating thing?  A me thing?  Am I still unreasonable today?  These are the kinds of things that drive me a little nutty, but I choose to react sensibly.  I took a night off cannabis earlier this week and went into full insomnia mode.  I couldn’t help but think of the situation.  I thought that perhaps it was unfair of me to put this on her at a time in her life where she had other things which were more important to focus on.  All I wanted was for her to understand what had happened to me and appreciate what it meant to the hypothetical ‘us’.  Beyond that, I had no expectations.  But just because that was important to me, doesn’t mean it had to be important to her.  So I grabbed my phone and decided to send her a message that would basically say no hard feelings, I know you have a lot going on, and if you ever feel compelled, here’s a link to my blog.  The hope was that when she was ready, she’d see the journey I took, and see the steps that I’ve taken to arrive at who I am today.  She’s also see my ENTJ Love Story which is one of my life’s most honest moments, and all about her.  Instead I accidentally hit the call button.

I hit the hang-up button like I was button mashing a Mario Party game but to no avail. The call never went through, but she noticed and asked what’s up?  I was a little tongue-tied.  It was difficult to express myself in short text messages, when she was still making so many assumptions about who I am, based on who I was.  We texted until about 4am, but most of that was me deleting and rewriting messages, desperate not to be misunderstood.

She told me that her stance on us was that she wasn’t in the right mindset to be thinking about it since she didn’t have a clue which city she’d be living in once she graduated.  I told her it might be an interesting conversation to have, but not one that I was ready for either.  Truth is, I still have more ground that I need to cover before I would consider myself ready to be in that caliber of a relationship.  What I did want to know is that if the path that I was on was aligned with hers.

When we broke up, we each recognized that we had things that we needed to work on.  And if we did, we could come back to each other and our relationship would be that much stronger.  At the time, I didn’t realize how much of that work was mine to be had, nor did I realize that it would end up being me that would be more compatible to who she was, and not her who would become more compatible to who I was.  But I didn’t know for sure, because all I had to work with was my memory of who she was.

She said it was tough to talk about because she would think about how we were before and it was like she was talking to a whole new person.  I breathed a sigh of relief… she was finally seeing what I was trying to show her.  Then she told me that one of our biggest issues was how dominant I was.  No one had ever described me as dominant in a relationship before, but it was easy to understand why.  I’m happy she said it.  She went on to say that I would push my point of view rather aggressively, and wasn’t the best at taking the time to reflect on my stance.  She was right.  But then she said that it seemed like I was doing that now… and my heart sank.

I conceded that I had issues.  Give me a woman who follows my lead and I get bored.  Give me a woman who challenges me and I compete to win.  Her emails reminded me of these issues, but they also reminded me of how far I had come.  I told her I hoped she’d have a chance to get to know this person, because she played a very real role in where I am now.  She said that she was happy, but was concerned that it didn’t happen until years later.  I responded by saying that I wasn’t in the right state of mind to learn these things when we dated.  I was consumed with becoming what I thought the world expected of me, not taking the time to figure out who I really was and what I had to offer to the world.  She said she was proud, and it sounded like I was on the right track.

And that was it.  We have no future plans to talk.  I have no interest in taking up any more of her time.  I don’t think she’s all that interested in putting thought into this either… but I know I’ve planted a seed.  What I wanted most was to know if any of what I thought or felt was real.  But once I did, I cared too much to do nothing, and knew better than to chase after her.  So I planted a seed.  I haven’t a clue what happens next.  I’d be lying if there wasn’t a part of me thinking about booking a ticket to her grad ceremony but I’m not sure if it’ll be a sign of stalking, support, or a grand gesture of romance.  Especially since my intentions are probably a combination of all three.  But then the pragmatic side of me says there’s at least a 50/50 chance that it goes horribly wrong.  But then the romantic says 50/50 are great odds when you’re talking about something this meaningful.

All I know is that having a chance to reconnect with her and put this out there has left me with a sense of peace.  The rest of my life still feels like the eye of the storm, but at least here, I’ve made progress.