I don’t know where we went wrong, but the feeling’s gone, and I just can’t get it back.

GORDON LIGHTFOOT

Have you ever gotten to the end of a personal or business relationship that you know has run its course?

When the circumstances have become irreconcilable, how do you handle yourself? 

Do you find a repressed desire deep within you to finally speak your mind and make your feelings known? Or do you withdraw internally, say nothing, and exit silently? 

What is your style? Do you walk away feeling like Gordon Lightfoot, who wrote this song? He said, “If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts would tell.“ Is it important to you to vocalize or is it more important to you to keep circumstances as neutral as possible, and just extricate yourself from the personal or professional situation? 

There are many times where the choice to verbalize everything might be the worst choice you could make. For there are times where the receiving party not only will not hear you, but they blatantly do not care. 

Conversely, there might be times where we are making a presumption about the other party, and if we don’t opt to verbalize what we are thinking, we could be walking away from something based entirely on a misconception, predicated upon our own observations which are wholly unsubstantiated by the other party. 

Would it not be a shame to know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that your understanding of the situation was accurate? 

These are the choices at our disposal at such a moment of potential reconciliation. We are left with vast quantities of discontent, which are incapable of being satiated by anything in that particular situation and consequently, all we can contemplate at that point is the fastest possible extrication of ourselves, as would be possible. 

When you find yourself in an untenable situation, you are probably best served exploring your perceptions of that situation in relation to other information that might be at your disposal, prior to making the final decision to terminate said relationship, with no further discourse. 

Happy Tuesday!