Take a Deep Breath, Then Begin
Sep. 20th, 2021 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeI've been watching and reading a few things that have helped me put a few things about my life into place. They're nothing much, just puzzle pieces that help complete a picture that I'm still struggling to resolve. But every little bit helps, and making these realizations concrete through writing is the best next step in making sense of them.
We're reading "The Shepherd's Crown" over dinner, and I have to admit feeling a lot like Tiffany Aching in my adult life. She's come into some new responsibilities as a witch and struggles to deal with the increased workload. She's conscientious, so she works as hard as she can with the tools she has available, but it's not enough. She knows it's not enough, but there's not a whole lot she can do about it. Worse still, other people know it's not enough and every now and then word gets back to her that people are talking.
Her instinctive reaction is to be angry. Don't these people know how much she's doing for them already? How so much of what she's doing she doesn't actually have to do if people were a bit more thoughtful? And how much easier it is to complain about what's not being done instead of just...doing what needs to be done?
I have these exact thoughts when someone criticizes the work I do, or points out something that's been missed. Mostly that last question. I recognize that there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done -- more than I can do alone -- and the best way to right the wrong of me missing something is rolling up your sleeves and pitching in. If something is important for you to get done, then do it! Nothing's stopping you. Trust me, chances are I already know it's being missed and I'm either too tired or too busy to do it when someone else prefers it to be done. I'm only one person, fighting a brain that doesn't want to settle down. I could definitely use the help.
One of the lessons Tiffany has to learn, I think, is that she can only do her best. If that's not enough, it's all right to ask for help. Or take advice that might actually make the work a bit easier. We get this idea as we get older that age and experience confers an implicit authority, when it really doesn't. I'm 40 years old, but I'm flailing as much as the next guy. Knowing my limitations -- and accepting them even when I feel they're inadequate -- can go a long way towards removing my ego from a situation and seeing it more clearly. I think having the things I missed pointed out to me isn't necessarily a criticism; it can be a subtle reminder from someone that they would like to be thought of in specific situations a bit more. It's a plea to consider that presumably shared priorities are out of alignment.
Over time, I've been trying to respond to these situations by laying out where MY priorities are. "If you want me to do task A, it will have to after tasks X, Y, and Z. If you can help with any of these, I'd appreciate it." The response, so far, has been a lesson in prioritization. A lot of the things I think of as necessary really aren't for some people, and it's a bit of a surprise to see that I'm stressing over a lot of things that just aren't so important elsewhere.
But then, what could I expect? I've been numbing myself quite a bit to the emotions of others for a while now. In hindsight, I think this is because I feel like no one's looking out for my emotions. People say or do things without considering how I feel about them, and on the occasions I speak up my emotions are often litigated so the conversation becomes a justification about how I feel. It feels like other people expect their emotional lives to be treated as valid, but I don't get the same courtesy.
So, over time, I've opted out of being responsible for someone else's emotions -- especially when it comes to me. If someone feels like I'm not giving them proper priority, that's on them. It's not my job to make sure other people are happy. It's all I can do to keep my head above water. I don't have the energy to look after other people, too.
But that's not the kind of person I want to be. It feels *right* for me to be connected into the emotional lives of other people, and I feel so much better when I'm actually engaged in a relationship. We're watching a show called "Nine Perfect Strangers" on Hulu, and it's been a surprise delight. Basically, nine people are selected for a session at "the most expensive self-improvement center" and, through radical exercises, are learning to face the trauma they've been running from and ALSO guide their workshop colleagues through THEIR trauma. The leader, an ex-CEO named Masha, is microdosing her patients with psilocybin, so the group is especially vulnerable and volatile. But the show cares for its characters, and folks actually stopping to face the dissonance that's been building up within them makes for riveting, cathartic television.
One of the strangers is an ex-football player who experienced a career-ending injury right when he was fulfilling his potential. He never got over it, got addicted to painkillers and generally just pushed everyone out of his life, intentionally or not. He misses his wife and children, regrets the choices that have made him an absent father. He desperately wants to care about others, but also can't deal with his own mistakes and inadequacies. The only recourse he can think of is to retreat into this drug-fueled shadow world where he's left alone to minimize his own pain.
Watching him realize what he's doing, and see past the drugs to the incredible weariness he feels, hits me where I live. In episode 4 (or is it 5?), he says "I don't know if I want any of this bad enough. I don't know if I'm going to make it." He tries to walk it back to be about the retreat, but the more serious implication is out there now. I've felt like that. I *feel* like that.
I want to be a good person. I want to help other people. I want to help foster and strengthen a community. But I don't know if I want it bad enough to deal with the pain and frustration that's a part of that experience. And if I don't know if I want to actually drive towards my life's purpose, doesn't that mean I don't know if I want to go on living?
I'd never kill myself. I couldn't do that to the people I love. But there have been so many times where I've thought what a relief it would be to die, to not have the burden of consciousness any more, to not have to struggle as hard as I can only to disappoint the people closest to me. Part of me fails out of so much because I don't want anyone to expect anything out of me. I'm just going to get it wrong, and I can't take the blowback when I do.
But what else is there? Can I be as resilient as I'd need to be in order to be as conscientious as I want? I don't know. But that's the feeling I have to sit with right now.
We're reading "The Shepherd's Crown" over dinner, and I have to admit feeling a lot like Tiffany Aching in my adult life. She's come into some new responsibilities as a witch and struggles to deal with the increased workload. She's conscientious, so she works as hard as she can with the tools she has available, but it's not enough. She knows it's not enough, but there's not a whole lot she can do about it. Worse still, other people know it's not enough and every now and then word gets back to her that people are talking.
Her instinctive reaction is to be angry. Don't these people know how much she's doing for them already? How so much of what she's doing she doesn't actually have to do if people were a bit more thoughtful? And how much easier it is to complain about what's not being done instead of just...doing what needs to be done?
I have these exact thoughts when someone criticizes the work I do, or points out something that's been missed. Mostly that last question. I recognize that there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done -- more than I can do alone -- and the best way to right the wrong of me missing something is rolling up your sleeves and pitching in. If something is important for you to get done, then do it! Nothing's stopping you. Trust me, chances are I already know it's being missed and I'm either too tired or too busy to do it when someone else prefers it to be done. I'm only one person, fighting a brain that doesn't want to settle down. I could definitely use the help.
One of the lessons Tiffany has to learn, I think, is that she can only do her best. If that's not enough, it's all right to ask for help. Or take advice that might actually make the work a bit easier. We get this idea as we get older that age and experience confers an implicit authority, when it really doesn't. I'm 40 years old, but I'm flailing as much as the next guy. Knowing my limitations -- and accepting them even when I feel they're inadequate -- can go a long way towards removing my ego from a situation and seeing it more clearly. I think having the things I missed pointed out to me isn't necessarily a criticism; it can be a subtle reminder from someone that they would like to be thought of in specific situations a bit more. It's a plea to consider that presumably shared priorities are out of alignment.
Over time, I've been trying to respond to these situations by laying out where MY priorities are. "If you want me to do task A, it will have to after tasks X, Y, and Z. If you can help with any of these, I'd appreciate it." The response, so far, has been a lesson in prioritization. A lot of the things I think of as necessary really aren't for some people, and it's a bit of a surprise to see that I'm stressing over a lot of things that just aren't so important elsewhere.
But then, what could I expect? I've been numbing myself quite a bit to the emotions of others for a while now. In hindsight, I think this is because I feel like no one's looking out for my emotions. People say or do things without considering how I feel about them, and on the occasions I speak up my emotions are often litigated so the conversation becomes a justification about how I feel. It feels like other people expect their emotional lives to be treated as valid, but I don't get the same courtesy.
So, over time, I've opted out of being responsible for someone else's emotions -- especially when it comes to me. If someone feels like I'm not giving them proper priority, that's on them. It's not my job to make sure other people are happy. It's all I can do to keep my head above water. I don't have the energy to look after other people, too.
But that's not the kind of person I want to be. It feels *right* for me to be connected into the emotional lives of other people, and I feel so much better when I'm actually engaged in a relationship. We're watching a show called "Nine Perfect Strangers" on Hulu, and it's been a surprise delight. Basically, nine people are selected for a session at "the most expensive self-improvement center" and, through radical exercises, are learning to face the trauma they've been running from and ALSO guide their workshop colleagues through THEIR trauma. The leader, an ex-CEO named Masha, is microdosing her patients with psilocybin, so the group is especially vulnerable and volatile. But the show cares for its characters, and folks actually stopping to face the dissonance that's been building up within them makes for riveting, cathartic television.
One of the strangers is an ex-football player who experienced a career-ending injury right when he was fulfilling his potential. He never got over it, got addicted to painkillers and generally just pushed everyone out of his life, intentionally or not. He misses his wife and children, regrets the choices that have made him an absent father. He desperately wants to care about others, but also can't deal with his own mistakes and inadequacies. The only recourse he can think of is to retreat into this drug-fueled shadow world where he's left alone to minimize his own pain.
Watching him realize what he's doing, and see past the drugs to the incredible weariness he feels, hits me where I live. In episode 4 (or is it 5?), he says "I don't know if I want any of this bad enough. I don't know if I'm going to make it." He tries to walk it back to be about the retreat, but the more serious implication is out there now. I've felt like that. I *feel* like that.
I want to be a good person. I want to help other people. I want to help foster and strengthen a community. But I don't know if I want it bad enough to deal with the pain and frustration that's a part of that experience. And if I don't know if I want to actually drive towards my life's purpose, doesn't that mean I don't know if I want to go on living?
I'd never kill myself. I couldn't do that to the people I love. But there have been so many times where I've thought what a relief it would be to die, to not have the burden of consciousness any more, to not have to struggle as hard as I can only to disappoint the people closest to me. Part of me fails out of so much because I don't want anyone to expect anything out of me. I'm just going to get it wrong, and I can't take the blowback when I do.
But what else is there? Can I be as resilient as I'd need to be in order to be as conscientious as I want? I don't know. But that's the feeling I have to sit with right now.
