Speak your mind

I prefer an honest guy who looks me in the eye and says you have amazing tits than a phony guy who looks at my breast all night and says I have beautiful eyes. – says the lady in the movie “Little Indiscretions”

To many of us, Dwight Schrute in the TV sitcom Office (US), appears to be rude. For he speaks his mind so loud and clear, that it is annoying. But this week, Time magazine has brought out an article praising his virtues. It says that it does a whale of good to the office, if even one person in a group speaks his mind.

Of course there may be some casualties along the way like Christian Streiff, CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroën losing his job this week for being too outspoken.

But I believe our relationships in general will be more authentic and lively if we speak our minds.

But how often do we do that? We cover up our feelings, intentions, and preferences just to be accepted.

To give you an example, I know a friend who prefers to stay in the warmth and comfort of his lobby and lets his dog out in the middle of the night in winter. It runs around and comes back after a short while. That is his way of walking the dog in winter.

Suppose I don’t know his style and if he asks me to do him a favor by walking his dog in bad weather, what would I say? Just to be accepted I would say, “Oh, I love that. Isn’t he cute? What is his name?” and so on while I don’t even know whether it is he or she. In that one instant, if I speak my mind, I could save myself a lot of trouble.

Remember how Dwight lost her girlfriend Angela? Though he is known to speak his mind loud and clear every time in the office, there was one time he failed. That was when he agrees to feed her cat in her absence. The result: he lost his relationship with her.

Being true to our selves could be something as simple as telling our neighbor that we don’t like dogs (if we truly don’t like dogs) or we don’t want to, when he/she requests us to walk his dog for him
Or
As serious as confessing to one’s spouse about one’s extra-marital affair (Remember the movie Fatal Attraction).

I know it doesn’t come easy when being nice or accepted is the norm in our society. So I suggest speak your mind 101 course from BBC for a start.

P.S. To those of you who want to know if l love dogs:

To be honest with you I do like dogs: But only those that really look like a dog that stands tall, with a mane that flows majestically across its body and a tail to match. In short it should be regal to have one beside you. To me dogs should not look like pigs, sheep or rabbits.

I might have alienated some of my readers with this one statement, who have dogs that don’t fit my description and are so upset that they choose not to come back to this site. Ever!

If you are one of them, before you go away, may I request you to consider that, if I hide my preference would this article make any sense?