The right man

Cleavage is one of the blogs I read where I avidly pounce on every new post as soon as it appears.  Kelly's content is great, but what grabs my attention is the way it shines through her prose just how much she lives, breathes and loves writing.  I aspire to write as candidly and passionately as she does.

Anyway my trail through her archives the other day led me to this "Ahhh moment"...

"You don’t have to convince the right man to do the right thing."

Kelly Diels

It stopped me in my tracks, hit me like a freight train, [insert any other suitably overused and meaningless metaphor of your choice]. 

I do this all the time.  All the time.  I could not count how many times I think, write, speak and act in a way which is designed to persuade, cajole, induce and convince.

Now there is no escaping that sometimes in this life, we have to persuade people.  Sometimes you have no choice but to persuade the wrong person into doing the right thing.

But it is a terrible habit to automatically assume persuasion is necessary.  Give people space to be the right man.  And in your relationships - well if they aren't the right man, what on earth are you doing there anyway?  

This is not an excuse to expect people to be psychic and always know what the right thing is without you telling them. It's ok to tell people what you need, just don't assume they need to be persuaded in order for them to give it to you. 

For me this is a naked truth, it's a game changer.  I simply had to "write it down big".  It's up there with "treat others as you would like to be treated" and "he's just not that into you".

It is pointless for me to say any more.  Kelly says it better.  You should go and read her article in full...here.