A strange thought

When I was in Portland, we plowed through the fifth and final season of The Wire. For those of you not familiar with the show, it is pure awesome. One of the central characters on there is Detective Jimmy McNulty and I realized this morning that I really identify with him. I'll be careful not to spoil anything, but there is a scene where some FBI profilers are essentially describing McNulty: highly functional alcoholic, has problems with authority figures, etc. and I thought, damn. If I hadn't stopped drinking a few years ago that would describe me perfectly. I definitely have problems with authority figures and it has made work a bit... uh... interesting at times. I really don't like to be micromanaged, but fortunately, my boss is awesome and is pretty hands-off for the most part.

Anyhow, there is another scene in that season where a drunken Bunk tells Jimmy, "You're no good for people, man." Heh. Sometimes I feel like that describes me pretty well. I don't necessarily see it as a complete negative. I think McNulty and I sometimes lose sight of the consequences of our actions in our quest to make things right. Some people have called it selfishness, but I don't think that's quite right. Selfishness implies that you consider and then discard the feelings of others. I think this situation is more that we become so focused on the goal that we lose track of what happens along the way. Shoot. I wish I had a better way with words because the thoughts seem more profound in my head than what I've got typed out.

I know that I'm a good person, but I think that I need to work on being more aware of other people's feelings and how my actions affect them.

I've disabled comments on this post because I'm not really looking for feedback. I'm sort of thinking out loud.