I get stuck in these patterns of safe behavior. Loops that feel comfortable and predictable, but that steer me away from making “growth” choices. I’ll poke my head out and bump it on some new experience, and feel and think: “never again.”
I occasionally get faced with the reality of my own mistakes, seeing how peers, friends, coworkers have progressed in their lives while I seem to have frozen in time. A student I graduated high school with is now the Vice President of some large-ish company. Another is a lawyer. A young man I went to elementary school with has a PhD and makes silly money selling e-books and online classes he teaches. I know we’re not supposed to compare ourselves to others, but I still do.
I used to blame my parents, or think I was BORN this way of getting stuck or complacent. There may be a little truth to that thinking, but ultimately no one else but me controls me.
Thinking about my wins feels enormously empty when compared to my previous, grandiose plans. There is some line between self-hating narcissism and holding high expectations for oneself. I do the prior or both while convincing myself my self-talk is essential to push myself forward.
Sometimes, and I am not proud of this, I allow my problems to harm others. This is almost always friends, family members, sometimes a coworker. Typically I just don’t text, email or call back. An innocuous enough inaction, I convince myself. People ignore my communications all the time. But when I care enough about what that person thinks, it hurts. I expect to be ignored, but that’s not how normal people are. Normal, healthy people don’t expect or want to be ignored. It likely makes them angry or sad.
I can remember several occasions I would be talking with a friend who kept in regular contact with a family member, parent, or all their family members. I kept thinking: “That’s just not how my family is. We talk once in a while, not all the time.” But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that’s how I am. I don’t like receiving criticism, so I don’t share with people what’s going on in my life. Many of my life plans, from teenage-hood up through today, I don’t actually follow through on, and people I would share my plans with would understandably want to know what happened with: “that job” or “I thought you were going to school for an MBA” or “I thought you were moving out finally” or “I thought you said you were going to eat healthy.” This is a way that I have very much not grown up at all.
Most of my problems I feel I know the answer to solving, but struggle to force myself to act towards those answers.
I think I’m finally starting to fall asleep. (3:24 am)
Not everything’s been bad. I didn’t get married and lock myself in a nightmare divorce scenario. I don’t have any terminal illnesses. I’m not dead. I’ve just always thought too much, which has been my safety net and (a) great weakness.
I’ve started to watch myself, almost like in third person. I end up with thoughts like: “Dave needs to have some carbs or he gets REAL hungry.” “If Dave doesn’t go to the gym, he is going to lose it.” I feel this helps me reason or negotiate with my caveman brain, instead of just shouting orders and watching as I ignore them.
I’m signing off. Talk to your friends. Be willing to annoy them. Don’t be like me. They’ll deal with it.
Song of the post – Organs, by Of Monsters and Men
Gridiron Seasonal 