How is it possible to live a life with so much travel?
People sometimes ask this, and I suppose an explanation is owed. There are many observations that I could draw on. But in the interest of keeping this short, I will start with just two things, seemingly contradictory. Generally, people speak something that, in a way, can be viewed as the truth, but it’s often twisted to suit their needs. It’s hard to ever actually get to the truth. But if you have statements which are contradictory, both presumably justifiable in the eyes of the person speaking them, then this is valuable, because it requires deeper thought, and can lead to a real understanding of what’s going on. So, the two contradictory observations I would choose are:
- I was once rejected out of hand from a job in a bank in the City of London (indeed I’ve had a lot of job rejections). The feedback was simply: “He’s too pleasant.” Despite the best efforts of the recruitment consultant, no further explanation was offered.
- A (very successful) family member once told me: “Everyone’s afraid of you because you use your brain as a weapon.”
I’m not seeking to challenge either observation. But I have to ask the question, how is it possible to frighten people by being pleasant to them?
I think that it is possible. The explanation is that, while everyone agrees you should be respectful, polite and agreeable, if you actually embody those traits, you can become like a mirror - quietly showing up the faults of others. That can make people feel exposed. They won’t welcome your agreeableness, especially not professionally. So they find something - anything - to say. They may well compliment you. But they want nothing to do with you professionally.
So it was natural for me to try doing my own things. I don’t find it that hard to support myself without a job in London. But once you start down your own road, even for a short while (months), people then have a ready reason to distance themselves from you professionally. “He hasn’t been working. There must be something wrong.” So it becomes embedded. People will think in narrow ways if they have the chance.
Someone once said to me: “You have to become a hypocrite, like the rest of us.” And I suspect many people do so, reluctantly, over the course of their professional lives - through lack of an alternative. But I find that hard. I have a certain pride in myself, and would find it very painful to let that go. Others who respect me would query why I am starting to behave in such a way. And I do have alternatives.
So I find trips to go on. Maybe I’ll become a hypocrite after the next one. But the trip is always such a rewarding experience, and I look back on it thinking how much less it would have been if I could not have been myself while on it. So the moment to become a hypocrite never actually arrives.
Society unfortunately is not everything that we would like to believe that it is. I am just a mirror to that.
