It may surprise my readers to know that I am
stubborn. It is not an admirable trait but it is who I am. So this blog will be
therapy and I am looking to my readership to provide me with that therapy. So
first of all is being stubborn a good or a bad characteristic? Being stubborn
could also be characterised as sticking to ones guns, being certain about
something and not being swayed. Often the characteristic of blowing with the
wind is criticised as being weak. So therefore is being strong to be certain
about things, or indeed is it just being stubborn. Let me give you some
personal examples and we will return to the pros and cons of stubbornness.
As you know my mother sadly passed away in October of
last year, and under the circumstances of her death I have had to deal with the
coroner or more precisely he coroner’s office in Hastings. We got off to a bad start,
as the person I dealt with was very matter of fact. He did not give me any
information as to what the process involves. I later found out that there was a
booklet available that would have explained the whole process. He further
angered me when he said that the process would take at least six months because
the coroner only sat on a Thursday morning, I was tempted to ask that with such
a backlog maybe he should sit on another day. So when the coroner’s officer
asked me details about my mother’s childhood. When I asked what the relevance
of this is to the process, he said, “Because the coroner likes it”. Well that
did it I have been difficult, stubborn with this officer ever since.
Secondly I am now working part time, very part time,
and one of my colleagues has adopted a very command and control attitude
towards a working document that he wants, although there is no conceivable
reason why he wants it. So I have just refused and I am being stubborn.
If I look these personal examples I would say that
stubbornness actually equates to pride, and pride in this sense is not necessarily
an admirable characteristic. I would also say that my stubbornness is actually
only noticed by myself and is only eating me up, so what is the point. So once
again this blog has been therapeutic, I realise that my stubbornness is not an
admirable characteristic, and may be I should just get over it.
As with many human qualities, there are a multitude of facets to this stubbornness trait, for which you have shared a few examples. I would suggest stubbornness is not noticed only by the originator. At work, relentlessly evolving a user interface or workflow process until it provides value to the user is appreciated(assuming you also meet the schedule). In the garden, without a little stubbornness, the yields would be less or none at all. So for these two examples, I would suggest stubbornness has some endearing qualities and yes, a good characteristic. Yet when applied for instance to the discussion or debate of ideas new and old, the unsavory qualities could dominate if one were not careful. I would strongly encourage keeping some of your positive stubbornness facets but letting the not so endearing stubbornness facets dull.
ReplyDeleteAs always Rob accentuate the positive!!
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