The Freedom to Be a Jerk, Part ?

Recently at work I was talking with a co-worker about work styles and sucking up to the boss.  It was kind of neat for me to be able to say that it is totally natural and authentic for me to be a suck up.  I’m not sucking up on purpose.  I like people, and I can easily find something to like about most people.  What I also know about myself is that sometimes I don’t know how to be challenging to someone in authority.  I admire people who easily challenge those in authority.  Sometimes they also do that reflexively and that’s not a good thing, but I still respect the instinct.

Anyway, it was really fun to be able to have that conversation with my co-worker and know who I am and not be ashamed.  I like my co-worker, too, so I could also say that I’m hoping in the coming year that I can practice being more of a jerk.  She assured me that if I stayed around here, I’d get my chance!

I even said that I would know that I’ve had a good year if someone called me a jerk behind my back.  Oh gosh.  Why do I say these things?  And then why do I confess them here?  Well, because I really do want to be free to be myself.  I really do want to stretch into places I’ve thought were off-limits to me or way too scary.  Of course, I want people to call me a jerk because I’ve done something I think matters but they don’t.  I don’t want to be a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk.  Maybe that’s not even true.  I really don’t want to be so careful, and sometimes I am going to flub up massively.  I want to prove to myself that I can survive being a jerk.

I must really want this jerk-dom because it sure pops up in these posts every once in a while.