Friday afternoon

I know that somewhere inside myself there is a real self-destructive part of me. Probably everyone has this to a certain degree, and I don't necessarily think I have more of it. It happens that shit ain't cool. Basically what happens is that I put myself into a small spiral of despair (only for around 20-30 mins) where I argue against most things to myself.

If by now you are thinking "what a fucked up auto-biographic psychoanalysis" don't worry by the way, that's not what this post is about.

Anyway, when this happens what I become aware of is the effects I can have on people, first and foremost on myself. If leadership first and foremost is about leading yourself, then this becomes all the clearer. By leaving the rudder for only a minute (30 mins) in reality you are risking to go off course, and if you're map and compass aren't well equipped you might stay off course for a while!

So how to avoid this? First of all, accept that you cannot always lead yourself to some fairyland. I believe it's true. It's only that those moments that you can take leadership to a basic level. Lead yourself to shut up. Lead yourself to bed. Lead yourself to have a drink. Lead yourself to watch the television for 30 minutes while you look for your internal GPS.

The crazy thing is that these 20-30 minutes is were you basically mess up quite a few things. Leading yourself, others are proud to be led by you. Stop, only for a moment, and find a mutiny on board. Nobody wants to listen to this direction less idiot. And after 20 minutes you might find the mutiny hasn't stopped!

So today, this Friday afternoon I basically behaved like a prick to a person a hold so dear to my hear. I still haven't said sorry, but I will in about 5 minutes. Completely unnecessarily so, but I guess I lacked the ability to lead myself somewhere clever then. I guess that's the real trick. Spotting those moments. Moments of strength - and moments of weakness. Our skills and abilities aren't permanently fixed - they surely fluctuate. I am sure that even Ganhi wasn't ready to engage in peace talks if he needed a piss - badly!

My path has taken me 2 1/2 months into my year on the National Board. How time flies. And what an exciting path I have found for myself