"When the same person both grates on you and pulls at you, the split is worth trusting, because two feelings that strong rarely aim at someone else."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
SeekerThere’s this woman at work, Priya. She announced in the all-hands that she wants to run the whole division in three years. Just said it, out loud, to everyone. I sat there thinking, the nerve of her.
GuideThe nerve. What was the nerve exactly?
SeekerThat naked thing. Look at me, look how much I want. It’s embarrassing. You’d have cringed too.
GuideMaybe. I notice I want to agree with you and I’m going to not, because I’m more interested in you sitting there. It sounds like it stuck to you longer than a cringe usually does.
SeekerIt did. That’s the annoying part. I went home and I was still thinking about her. Not even mad, just, thinking about her.
GuideThinking about her how?
SeekerI don’t know. Kind of wishing I’d been in the room she was in her own head. Which is stupid, she’s exactly the kind of person I can’t stand.
GuideYou can’t stand her and you’re wishing you were in her head. Both of those, same day.
SeekerYeah. Don’t make it a thing. I know how this goes, it’s envy, fine, I’m jealous, checked the box. Can we move on.
GuideWe can, but you filed that so fast I don’t think you felt it. Envy of what, specifically? Her title? She doesn’t have the title yet.
SeekerNo. Of the… saying it. She wants something and she just says it and nothing bad happens to her.
GuideNothing bad happens to her.
GuideSay more about the bad thing? What happens when someone wants out loud?
SeekerThey get slapped down. Or laughed at. My dad used to say, people who reach get their hand cut off. Not even cruel, just, that’s how he saw it. Keep your head down, don’t want more than you’ve got.
GuideSo she stood up in that room and did the thing your whole house said gets your hand cut off, and her hand’s still attached.
Seeker…I hadn’t thought of it like her hand being attached.
GuideWhat’s it like to hear yourself say it?
SeekerUncomfortable. Because it’s not that I don’t want things. I want things. I just don’t, I keep them in a drawer. I don’t take them out where people can see.
GuideWhat’s in the drawer?
GuideYou don’t have to say.
SeekerI wanted to lead something. Years ago. I wanted it a lot. And I just, decided it wasn’t for me. Told everyone I wasn’t ambitious like that. I even believed it.
GuideAnd Priya stands up and shows you the drawer’s open the whole time. For her.
SeekerYeah. So when I say she has nerve, I think I mean, how are you allowed. Who told you you were allowed.
GuideThat’s a real question. It sounds like you’d like the answer.
SeekerI don’t want to want it again. That’s the honest thing. It was quieter after I put it down. If I pick it back up I have to be the person who wants and might not get it. That’s the part her hand-still-attached doesn’t fix for me.
GuideNo. It doesn’t fix it.
SeekerI came in here to complain about a coworker.
Was there a time when an ambitious person proved to be a moral one?
What actually shiftedIrritation and attraction pointed at the same ambitious person often means the ambition is one's own, set down long ago. For some, wanting out loud got ruled unsafe or immodest early on, so it went quiet under a "not that kind of person" story. Seeing someone want openly can reopen the drawer, which is why it both grates and pulls.
Keeping the direction yoursIf you read back the conversation: notice where the guide quietly became the one who knows — naming things, settling them. That feels normal because it happens so often. It's also where your own sense of direction can go quiet. SelfChatter adds a second voice that just makes those moments visible, so the direction stays yours.