"I'm not stubborn."
You would have thought I reinvented the knock-knock joke or something. These people that knew me best were ROLLING on the floor with tears STREAMING down their face. Fine, whatever. I'm stubborn. I didn't realize though, how stubborn I was perceived as being until January when I went to the ER for dehydration. About 10 hours after leaving the ER for treatment, I was back at work. I only told everyone because I did miss one day... and the tape from the IV was still stuck to my arm. My favorite co-worker expressed her genuine concern at my idiotic behavior and my boss just smirked and said, "Ali loves to be a martyr."
At first I thought this was a compliment. Martyrs are really great, brave people, so passionate for a cause that they'd die for it. But hold on... I don't think most martyrs, at least sane ones, love to be a martyr. They're just willing to be. And it's for one cause. If there was someone so stupid that they'd lay their lives down for every opinion they have... crap, that wasn't a compliment. To be fair, if there's a gene for stubbornness, I have it bad. You see, I'm the granddaughter of the KFC martyr. My grandpa didn't eat or purchase KFC for 35 years. THIRTY. FIVE. YEARS. And he loves fried chicken. But you see, thirty-five years ago, some person at some KFC pissed my grandpa off. And he was done doing business at KFC. All KFCs. Forever.
Would he go to a KFC in China? Answer's still no.
Not to mention my dad, whose going 12 years strong on his boycott of Old Chicago after they had bad service on my sister's 10th birthday. My grandpa told Nate a while (I don't even remember who about), "Well, if you don't like him, I don't like him!" which in our family is a great compliment, but I think it just kind of disturbed Nate (as it probably would most people).
Don't get me wrong, in many areas of my life, my stubbornness has served me well. My first weekend at Eureka one of the douche-y frat guys saw my friends and I walking around campus and invited us to play beer pong. I didn't even say anything. He looked at the look I was giving him and said, "Okay, she's not in, apparently." So in terms of peer pressure, being stubborn is a great asset. No means no - because I said no. I think it's also helped me professionally. Ya, I probably come off like a huge jerk from time to time, but at the end of the day, I get things done. Because I don't care if your Vice President, Senior Vice President, Senior Executive Vice President, or the cleaning lady. I want you to have answers for why you want me to do things a certain way, and if I think I have a better way, I expect you to explain why you still want to do it your way. This makes me sound like a miserable employee, but at the end of the day, even if a leader doesn't know it, that's the kind of employee that they want and need.
Though it's hurt me too, my stubbornness has actually helped my faith in a lot of ways. I stand firm for my faith, and I'm not shaken because stubbornness is just a part of me.
But as I think about all of the things that I'm stubborn about... all of the things I fight for... all of the things that I beat myself up about if I give in on... I feel a little silly. I'm working to become more deliberate about choosing which things are worth being stubborn about, and which things I should just let go. Because really, a martyr who will die for anything, really isn't a martyr at all.
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