Planning

I’ve always loved making plans, but I can’t say I’m the greatest at following them.  Routine and I aren’t great friends.  I’ve decided, finally, that this has to change.  Creating and following a daily routine for myself is a key part of the progress that I need to make in my life.  I know I can do this.  I just need to commit.

So, to push my resolve, I’ve decided to post a rough summary of my weekly routines here.  I might post a more detailed version at a later date.

Sunday- Meal plan, Communicate online, Crafting
Monday- Blog post, Speaking practice (social), Language Learning
Tuesday- Cleaning, Communicate online, Speaking practice (sell)
Wednesday- Blog post, Speaking practice (social), Music
Thursday- Communicate online, Speaking practice (sell), Language Learning
Friday- Blog post, Speaking practice (social), Crafting
Saturday- Cleaning/ organizing, Music, Language Learning

Because there’s no time like the present, I’m going to begin today, with this post.

Focus

I’m having so much trouble focusing, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why that is. I’m letting myself become distracted more often than I have been lately.  I’m losing my motivation.  That’s very easy to do in this place, lose motivation.  These surroundings are so soul-crushing.  But I was doing alright before, for a while.  Maybe I got burnt out.

I think I had a specific plan in place for a while, and without one, I can feel myself slipping back into those old, self-destructive procrastination habits.  The best, and only, way to do the thing is to just do the thing.  I need to write.  If this is what I want to do, I have to do it. I need to create. If that’s my direction, I need to move in it. And I need to study. This period of time, I keep telling myself, is a time to study, learn, and practice. I need to put time into studying all of the fields where I feel incompetent and want to progress, learn skills and techniques to improve, and practice them. I can’t get any better if I don’t put in the work.

Interaction Imbalance

I need to get out more.  I’ve known this for a while, but it’s becoming more and more pressing now.  A year has passed since my life physically stagnated, and I’m realizing how at the same time that I’m seeking more balance, my life has become more imbalanced than ever.

I’m the type of person who can only fully see myself when in relation to other people.  Perhaps everyone is like this, but it’s dawning on me with painful clarity.  It’s good for me to know this, because in this past year I’ve primarily only interacted with my immediate family.  And they don’t count as “other people.”  I’ve often felt like the worst parts of me come out around my family, so this long period of limited interaction has me doubting whether or not I’m even a good person.  This is coupled with the fact that I only became truly self-aware last year.  That may sound strange, but I honestly never truly looked at myself as someone who mattered, or gave myself the chance to matter, until about 7 months ago.  This is also not to say that I have myself all figured out—far from it—but I’m beginning to see myself, and not having the mirror of other people seriously delays my progress.

Part of becoming aware of who I was involved becoming aware of who I wanted to be.  And I realized that who I wanted to be was, in many ways, different from who I had been for a long, long time.  So the readjustment period involved forcing a lot of long-established bad habits to change, and also coming to resent the bad habits that I couldn’t change, the ones that I didn’t have control over.  Namely, these “bad habits” were the ones held by those around me that affected me, including how they treated me and expected me to be (not technically “bad habits,” but just roll with it).  The more I set out to change, the more angry and resentful I became of everything else that stayed the same, until I reached my current point, where I feel so restless that I might combust at any moment, and I carry an anger that constantly simmers beneath the surface.

So I need some new surroundings.  I need different people around and more chances to practice the different sides of myself.  I’m sure that it’s normal to act differently with the people you have enormous amounts of baggage with versus the people you’re just getting to know and are trying to get to like you.  In my case, I’ve had so much—far too much—interaction with the first group that I’m beginning to forget who I am with the second.

Predicting the Future

I can’t predict the future.  None of us can.  That is one of the most obvious and most important affirmations for me to make.  Of course I can’t predict the future.  So why do I act like I can?  Why do I allow myself to be discouraged from taking action based on the myriad of possible future outcomes that I come up with?

College was one big missed opportunity.  I hate feeling that way, but that’s the reality of the situation.  So many times, I stopped myself before I’d even started.  So many times, I was too afraid to try what I wanted to try.  Because… why?  What was I afraid of?  Judgment from strangers?  Since when have I really cared what they thought?  I was never the sort of kid who cared about what “everybody” thought or who wanted to be “popular” with people in general.  Instead, I had specific people who I liked and wanted to like me back, whose opinions I was far too concerned with.  In college, I swapped out the childhood group with new people and became fixated with how they perceived me, with their opinions.  I spent so long being afraid of being rejected.  When in reality, alone is what I’ve always been and what I’ll likely always be.

Wait.  I can’t predict the future.  I’m doing it again.  It’s such an easy habit to slip into.

My mind likes me to be cowardly, fearful.  It likes me to not do anything.  And it cloaks that desire in manipulative terminology.  “I want you to be safe.”  “You don’t want to be embarrassed.”  “It’s no longer appropriate.  You shouldn’t do that anymore.”  I’m afraid of the invisible outcomes, the predicted future, so I don’t act.  And I miss out.  I know, I already know, from experience, that things very rarely work out the way that I expect them to.  Yet I always let the hypothetical outcomes in my mind determine my action or inaction.  It’s truly ridiculous.

I can’t see the future, but I can see the past.  And I don’t like my past.  I can’t predict tomorrow, and I don’t know what to expect, but I know what I need.  I need it to be better than today.  I need to make choices, brave choices, that move me beyond this half-life I’ve been living.

Most Important Life Views

Here are what I consider to be two main, complementary yet rival life views: everything happens for a reason, and a reason can be found in everything.  Restated: everything has a meaning behind it, and everything can be given a meaning.  It’s like when we studied novels in high school lit classes.  There’s a story with an overarching theme, or perhaps several, and we were instructed to figure out how every little detail of the narrative tied to a theme.  Did the author intend for each piece, each event specifically as it unfolded, to tie into a bigger picture?  Or are the readers, gifted with the magic lens of hindsight, finding unplanned patterns and connections and creating their own Big Picture as they do?

I believe that everything happens for a reason, or more specifically that everything unfolds the way that it’s supposed to.  That’s what I decide to believe.  So much of life just boils down to what we choose to believe.  We live, each one of us, in a unique world formed from a personal, subjective perspective, after all.  Whatever we choose to believe becomes our reality.

But sometimes I wonder if there aren’t more dimensions to it.  Let’s say there’s a certain series of lessons to be learned in a life that’s moving down a certain path.  There’s a series of experiences to be had.  Well, who’s to say that each experience has to unfold in a specific way?  Lessons can be both destructive and wounding or transformative and healing, and both kinds of lessons tie into the same theme.  So what if our actions and our lack of actions lead us to one type of lesson or the other?  What if a single event, encounter, or opportunity has the potential to be either kind of lesson?  What if our screw-ups really do create missed opportunities, ones that we weren’t necessarily “meant” to miss?

These are the sorts of things that I think about on rainy Friday evenings.  As I was writing, I realized that this entire train of thought breaks one of my main rules.  I don’t have a lot of strict rules that I hold myself to (besides “show up to life,” “build more than you destroy,” etc.), but the one main thing I forbid myself from doing is speculating on What If.  And there, in the last paragraph I did it three times.  Now I’m wondering why I made that rule.  It’s important to think this way, to wonder these things.  I think I was afraid of the pain.  The last sentence of that last paragraph?  I’m pretty sure that’s a covert fear of mine.  I worry that my many, many screw-ups have cost me a lot of opportunities, and perhaps I justify that by convincing myself that “everything unfolds the way that it’s supposed to.”

Maybe the most important life views aren’t ones that revolve around past events at all.  Maybe it’s our perspective on the future that matters most.  I’m also a member of the “it’s not too late; it’s never too late” club.  We have the power to choose a completely different course of being and action in a moment, regardless of past choices and errors.  We just have to keep moving forward.  As long as we’re alive, we stand a chance.

Not Over There; Over Here

It’s very difficult for me to keep my thoughts on myself.  They always try to wander, either to past mistakes, to fantasy scenarios, or into the hypothetical minds of other people.  When I do manage to focus on the present moment, these thoughts are still rarely focused on me and what I’m doing.  I think of what everyone else is doing, whether they have what they need or if there’s something I could do to help, and how they react to what I’m doing or saying.

I only realized that I was doing this somewhat recently, and it’s not good.  It’s natural for me, just the natural direction that my thoughts move in.  But it’s not good.  We have to be able to think of ourselves, here and now, regularly.  Not constantly, and not exclusively, but regularly.  I (along with many others, I’m sure) am well-versed in the toxic thoughts that come back after we allow them to spend too much time away from us, on others and on trying to figure out what’s going on in their heads.

So, as a technique for reentering my own head when I catch my mind wandering, I use the phrase “Not over there; over here.”  Sometimes if I’m alone, I say it aloud.  Or else I say it mentally.  When I start thinking about that time I said that really stupid thing to my friend, and now she probably thinks I’m— “Not over there; over here.”  Or when I’m around someone who seems to be looking at me funny.  Did I do something wrong?  Is he thinking— “Not over there; over here.”  What am I working on right now?  What’s my next task?  Or (when I really have nothing else to do) what can I speculate on that’s just for me, like what did I think of that book I just read, or what happened on my favorite TV show last night?

I use these words every time I find my thoughts going where I don’t want them to.  I used to just say “Focus” or “Calm down,” but neither stuck.  This new phrase is not only sticking but working.

Foolish or Brave?

Is wanting what you can’t have foolish or brave?  I’ve always told myself that it was foolish, self-destructive, but I’m starting to think that it might not be.  There is no accomplishment without desire.  You have to want more in order to pursue more.  But what if what you want to pursue is really, truly impossible?  Not “flying” impossible but “kissing the surface of the moon” impossible.  What then?

When I was younger, I learned to only ask for what I knew I could get.  That included things—not time, attention, or affection, only physical objects.  This morphed into me teaching myself to only want things, and more specifically to only want things that fell within the specific price range that was considered reasonable.  Of course, this was essentially a long con that I played with myself as the target, using a continuous pattern of lies and manipulation to obtain… what, exactly?  What was the payout that I sought?  I’m not entirely sure, but I think it was some sort of pain alleviation, either in the form of somehow having the unspoken wants (which were actually needs) satisfied, or by having the desperate lie somehow turn into the truth so that the quiet, aching truth would finally disappear.  “You want this thing,” was the false belief that I forced onto myself when I really wanted so much more.

I realize now that what I really wanted wasn’t truly impossible.  It was just too narrow.  I’m realizing that expanding it from “I want this person to care about me and that person to spend time with me” to “I want someone to care about me and someone to spend time with” is the difference between impossible and possible.  But what about things, like the friendship of a certain person, that are by nature more specific?  Honestly, I’m not the best judge.  I still can’t tell the difference.  If it’s not something I can walk to with my own legs or make with my own hands, it feels out of reach.  And, most importantly, if it involves other people, it feels practically impossible.  Even though I technically know that it isn’t.

So I’ve decided that there are basically two choices.  (Three, I guess, if you count living in a state of perpetual uncertainty and endless frustration.  Which I don’t.)  I can either believe that everything I believe to be impossible actually is or that nothing I believe to be impossible actually is.  All or nothing.  The second one, still holding onto desire even when the object feels too far out of reach, is the bravest choice.  The question is: will I be brave enough to make it?

Thought I Was Rising, But I’m Still Burning Down

I’ve been burning for months now, and I’m pretty tired of it.  At first, I thought it was exciting.  I was changing form, finally changing into I-didn’t-know-what, but there was no way it could have been worse than what I already was.  I was eager, and I jumped right into the blossoming self-awareness and transformative new mindset that came with dying to my old self, the fearful, self-loathing, hopeless old self.  I kept showing up, daily, embraced the new developments, and held up my side of the transformation bargain.  At least, I thought that’s what I was doing. 

Honest Liar

I’m the most honest liar I’ve ever known.  It’s because I try my best to be honest with everyone else while lying incessantly to myself.  I have a desire, and I shut myself down with “You don’t really want that.”  “You don’t really need that.”  “You don’t really need anything.”  What greater lie is there?  And I’m so out of touch that I don’t know what else to believe.

Alright, I ask, so what do I need?  Crickets.  No idea.  Must be nothing after all.  Just focus on your goals, I say.  Be careful not to go after anything that involves another human being, because you know how you are with those.  Hopeless.  And be careful not to pursue anything you can’t get.  You can go after anything you want, as long you already know you can get it.  On your own.  That’s the dialogue that I had with myself for the first 22 years of my life.

Now what?  I’m attempting a more comprehensive honesty.  I sit with myself now, in silence, and force any thoughts that I’m trying to avoid to the surface.  I legitimize the uncomfortable ones instead of stuffing them down.  And I correct the toxic, painful ones.  But still.  Something’s missing.  I’m attempting to reach outward and inward at the same time with this blogging, but there’s something that’s hidden from me.  There’s a lot that I’ve been hiding, that I’ve found, but something deeper that has been hidden from me still lingers.

For Those of Us At Sea

I don’t think we have to be out of the storm and off the waves before we can point other people to shore. I have a little rowboat, but you might have a speedboat or a jet ski. If I have an insight that might help you reach the shore faster than I can, and you end up getting there before me, that’s fine. I’m still moving, still heading in the same direction. I will get there.  Eventually, I will.