You don’t have to like me

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I speak with candor … candor, now that is a nice word, isn’t it? In not so nice words, it actually means I can be brutally blunt … those who know me well will agree. I will tell you what I don’t like … no beating around the bushes. I don’t put on a face … I don’t pretend. Not that I don’t know how to put on a mask and play along … just that, in most occasions I don’t want to. You may not like what I am … I prefer it this way rather than having you like me for what I am not.

Really, I am not the “Likeable Mr Able” type of person … my outspokenness tends to create discomfort for many people. They think I am rude. I am not rude … I am just being direct. Being direct is not the same as being rude.

In my corporate days, working amongst scheming, conniving, dubious characters hiding behind smiling masks … frankness was not something to be appreciated. Treading in sensitive company politics, candor is a dirty word. I always tell people I got a dirty job … was paid to be hated. 

It is very hard to be nice if you want to be right … very often it will offend people but if I dare not offend, I cannot be honest. So I have made enemies … it is alright to have enemies as Sir Winston Churchill once said: “You have enemies? Good. That means you have stood up for something, sometime of your life”.

You don’t like my straightforwardness? It is OK, you don’t have to like it … for that matter, you don’t have to like me. To those who understand and accept it, candor is a compliment … it is how we should talk. The way I look at it … those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

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