The bad guy

“Joe Hallenbeck: Who gives a fuck? You're the bad guy, right?

Milo: I am the bad guy.”  ~ The Last Boy Scout

 

Have I become the monster at the end of the book?  Am I the bad guy?

You hear stories about yourself and about creating a negative environment for consultants and you have to begin to wonder if the monster you've always feared you are is not some where lurking in the deep recesses of your mind?

Apparently, I have a knack for making people cry, especially young audit professionals. Apparently, I am the asshole.  It's true.  I can be a jerk.  However, to have a reputation as one.  To be the person others think of when they say he talks about making people cry.  To have people scared to come to your desk.  Having people loath and fear working with you or asking you question is a very painful thing.  The truth is I am completely blind to this.  I don’t feel like that is the person I am.  However, don’t actions speak the truth?   
 
I know I can be a bear.  I know the black dread radiates off me and people can feel hit hanging around me.  It's a black cloud I wear like a jacket.  I see myself being the asshole and at times I can't stop it .

Is it part of being KA-Mai?  Or is it something blacker and darker?  Or is it Darker than Black?

Is it insecurity?   Do I not stand behind what I do?  I don’t know.

What I do know is my chest feels tight right now.  When I walk around I get out of breath.  I know it is stress. With all the stuff I am dealing with feeling like the Asshole and the Bad Guy wasn’t something I was expecting. 

Then to be told that people would support you for certain things if you weren’t so moody and you were so up and down.  It hurts. 

I know in the blackness there is one underlining issue.  There is one thing that makes me angry and that is how little respect I have for myself. That every question I am asked is really a question that makes me questions my worth and self-value.  For so long the only thing I saw that I had in my life was my career.  It was my legacy and reputation and therefore each time I am asked a question I get my hackles up and feel like a dog back into a corner and I bite.

Confidence has always been an issue for me.  I think it is something that leads to fear.  Fear of not being good enough.  Not being accepted. Not being loved.  Now at this point I can go two ways.  I can go Point Break “fear causes hesitation, and hesitation, causes your worst fears to come true.”  And that is great.  However, I was looking more to Master Yoda here "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate.. to suffering"

Don’t most monsters suffer?  Don’t most bad guys have some jaded reason for being in the position they are in?  I don’t prescribe to Lucas theory on becoming a bad guy ok.  Lucas would tell us that a bad guys I made over time.  That we should actually feel sorry for Anakin Skywalker.  He had the rough life.  Slave, carrying teen, to madly in love and would do anything for wife, and that it was because of his over all love he did bad things.  I call bullshit on this.  Anakin took one hit of the dark side and got hooked on it.  The shit has to be more addictive than Crack cocaine.  He used it, he liked it, and he went down a dark path because he made a choice.  Not because of all the shit that happened in his life.  But because he made bad choices and those choices defined him.  I don’t need an excuse to understand why he went dark side. I don’t need three movies to try and make me feel bad for him.  He fucked up.  Thus the bad guy was born.

So, I know my fear and low self-worth make me angry and create fear and angst in my life.  That is my shit.  That is my stuff to deal with. It isn’t something that gives me the right to feel like I am back in the corner and need to bite.  The truth of the matter is this, that I am fucking good at what I do.  I am talented. I have a gift for deal structure and navigating grey and I need to believe in that.  That doesn’t give me the right to be an arragont prick, whether I have seen predcesors do it or not.  The combination of arragont and fear make me a monster.  Make me hard to deal with.  You put up with me for my genious, but I limit my self because of my actions.

So am I the bad guy?  On any given day at any given choice the answer is yes.  I am the bad guy.  However, to let that define me.  To let that lead me to making poor decision for myself is bull shit. All you can do is make the most of the time we are given.  All we can do is wait for that choice to come again and make sure don’t get our hackles up.  To make sure we put the dog away and let the man deal with it.  The truth is I look to every aspect of my life and I don’t accept less than the best I can do.  I have been that.  I have accepted that.  Health, career, writing, I have to put my best foot forward.  I have to make the decision that better me as a person.  Yelling, being stubborn, being angry any of that shit is unacceptable.

My goal is to become a little more enlightened every day.  A little more peaceful.  Baby steps.  Put the bad guy away and look to the rebirth.  Engage in a life worth living.  Don’t hate yourself for what you did but be proud of knowing you realize your faults and accept them and that you are willing to work on them.  You are willing to push forward and that you expect more out of you.

You have to reign in the monster at the end of the book.  You have to be better.  You can be.  You take responsibility for what you said.  For have remorse for those you have made cry and made feel stupid or humiliated.  You learn from it.  As you would never want anyone to make you feel that way.

You know that your cause and goals are noble.  That the betterment of yourself is worthy.  Even with a checkered past you deserve happiness and health.  You deserve to see your tower.

In the end you know you heart is good.  You want to give to the world not destroy it.  Therefore, monster, bad guy, no that is not probably right.  No.  Emotionally damaged, perhaps a better way of putting it.  Needing to deal with the rage and anger, yes. 

The real truth is that you know in your heart what the key to dealing with the black dread and the anger is.  It is called a pool or a walk.  It is called taking care o yourself.  You can fight the monster and when the great battle of your life.  You are close.  You know you are. 

You are getting there.  Monster or bad guy it is what it is.  What matters is today and who you are willing to be.  What matters is every day get a little bit better.  What matters is leave the past where it belongs behind you.  Look to the future.  Your future and stand and be true.  There is no going back now.  We have done too much.  We have come too far.  Stand and be true and fight for your future!

And I don’t care what Conrad Strughold once said “He’s but one man.  One man alone cannot fight the future.”  I am one man and I am fighting the future.  I don’t accept being a monster at the end of my book or a bad guy.  I will fight the future.