Getting my Hagrid on

There’s never a week where I don’t at least have one or two ‘Hagrid moments’. Now, I reference Hagrid not only because I’m a Harry Potter fanatic, but also because he’s probably my fantasy-world spirit animal. Too clumsy. Too blunt. Too naïve and just a friggin’ expert at doing and saying the wrong things at the wrong time. Blundering through life while enjoying it regardless. C’est moi. When you always find the light even in the darkest of situations and can find joy in the little things – you’re effectively Hagridding. But that also means you’d sometimes better keep silent a bit more.

So I regularly find myself internally screaming ‘Should not have said that. I should NOT have said that!’ at myself. This usually happens in Teams meetings at work – where I manage to blurt out my thoughts and opinions at any given moment (because I very much like my own thinking and conclusions and…well…hearing myself speak). Ain’t no shame in loving yourself that way – usually.

Unless the voiced opinions are flawed. Or incomplete. Or uncalled for. Maybe even inappropriate. Or even worse: the cause of a lot more work on your own plate. Yet somehow, every time me opening my mouth backfires – I seem to learn very little from said occassions. It’s like I can’t help myself. I speak before thinking, it’s a handicap that’s always haunted me. No matter how hard I try and no matter how much I keep reminding myself that taking a second to think is BETTER, my mouth races faster than my humility. Fucker.

This week I registered for 5 new work-courses in order to improve my super-professionalisticisiscm. Sadly, none of them are to teach me how to shut up at the right times. I wonder if one of those exists. I mean, I’ve already taken a boatload of softskills courses but even though I’ve supposedly learned ‘effective communicating’, ‘effective influencing’, ‘more effective communicating part 2’, situational leadership and a loooot of things about negotiation and conflictmanagement – I still lack any and all sense of propriety in ‘shutting the fuck up’. Guess some things just can’t be taught. Maybe wisdom comes with age, who knows!