I came
across a confirmative statement – good people are naïve. Such statement can be
interpreted in more than one way, but any of interpretations I can come up with
turns out depressing.
If it says
that there is no good in life, so only naïve can hope that their goodness is meaningful.
This would mean that reality is never good, including intentions,
relationships, trust in others and many, many things I would like to believe in
without feeling that I am a sucker.
Another
interpretation could be – if you are a good person you will be taken for a
ride. Maybe it is actually the same side of the goodness coin.
The reason
why I have embarked on such a subject is based on being rather self-centered.
For quite few years I felt uncomfortable about one of assessment of me as a
person. It was one of those management courses when you are supposed to learn
about management and also about yourself as a leader. Each evening we worked in
groups of four people preparing final presentation for assessment of our
suitability as managers. Our group was a difficult one as we all wanted to run
the show their own way. We worked till late hours and towards the end of the
week sleep deprivation was a problem of us all. I thought that we will never
agree on what and how we should present. Each evening when we came to our room
somebody would be standing with a marker in front of the whiteboard. Marker was
power. The sad point was that each day it would be somebody different and we
did not move forward.
What I want
to write about now is an assessment I got from the three of my colleagues. We
were supposed to fill in a questionnaire about personal traits of the others. I scored “sincere” as my top characteristic on
which all the other three this time had the same opinion. What surprised me was
that I was not happy with the assessment. It is actually positive – open, non
deceitful, genuine. Why did I feel put down by it? It seemed to me that they
were saying that I was naïve, gullible, weak and lacking development powers of
analysis (sic!). Who? Moi?
I did not
like it, but I had to accept their observation even if it has bothered me ever
since. When I came across the statement about good meaning naïve, it caught my
attention. There have been events in my life when I assumed that people around
me can be trusted and then, at times, I was proven that my expectations were
incorrect. Was I too naïve? Possibly. Should I change my approach to experience
less disappointment in my life? My answer is NO. My choice is to see good in
people. Not as a blind assumption, but after positive initial assessment, I want to trust rather than suspect deceit. It
may be that I will be hurt and disappointed more than I could if I took a
different approach, but not to trust permanently is beyond my capability. It
looks that I chose naivety as a part of sincerity as a companion of living my
way.
I have been
house bound for two weeks now, with mess in the house and in my thoughts.
People coming and going, raising dust and noise and I still do not see the end
to my future kitchen project. What is emerging does not seem to be what I had
imagined, some disappointment is sneaking in. This is a difficult time for me
and this may be the reason for choosing odd subjects for writing.
