It rolls in like fog off the coast. You can see it coming, you can feel it. Unlike the differential in temperatures that cause coastal fog, the cause of doubt is far more vague. But the two have glaring similarities as well. Like the captain on the sea blind in the fog can run aground, doubt can cause the wary traveler of life to hit a wall full force.
A lot of times for me that doubt is more self-inflicted than anything. Something will trigger it and set off a chain of events. I don't know if I doubt myself more than anyone else, but I can't help but feel that way. It doesn't take much at all to get me going. It's like picking a scab, the more you mess with it the more it bleeds, the bigger it gets, and the worse it gets. Every little thing you do is wrong and you know it. Every thing you do is a big mistake. Even when you don't try or even know you did something, people seem quick to point out how big of a fuck-up you really are.
Take school for instance. How am I going to be able to take care of someone else when I can not even take care of myself? For that matter, that same thing comes in with regards to my family too. How am I supposed to care for my kids and my wife, when I can't take care of myself? How can I show them I love them when I am constantly reminded of my short-comings? How can you repair things when you feel like every time you blink, someone is right there to pull the rug right out from under you? I really don't know how. So if someone out there has some magical way to deal with this let me know.
I feel inadequate. I feel unwanted. Whether people realize it or not, that is what I get from them. I know when I have rational thought that they do not mean it. They do not think that way. They do not want me to feel that way. But in my clouded, fogged in mind, everything I do is wrong. Everything is just a mistake. If I try to be assertive, I'm an asshole. If I go with the flow, I'm spineless. Jack Johnson once sang: "Move like a jellyfish, rhythm is nothing, you go with the flow, you don't stop." I thought for a long time being like the jellyfish was a good thing. If you just go with it, nothing should worry you. But now, I'm feeling more like the Pacific trash island. Still floating along, but a expanse of waste that no one wants to deal with or admit is a problem.
Okay, I'm done whining. Time to go do something else.
Go with the flow, you don't stop...
ReplyDeleteWhen I fight the current, try to go my own way, make shit happen, I find myself more often disappointed and low on energy. My entire life, until the incident, I thought that my job was to make shit happen. I set the terms, I met them, all hail me.
I could make some things happen through sheer force of will, often sacrificing my morals and/or relationships in the process. I was a bastard when things didn't go my way, mostly a passive aggressive bastard, but sometimes a thundercloud of rage.
In the beginning, I tried to convince myself that when things didn't go my way that I was OK with it, when that failed I pretended. That was my earliest attempt at acceptance. Eventually I found that acceptance had nothing to do with how I felt about some event or situation. I had to accept the situation as reality, my judgement of its goodness or badness was unnecessary. This led to an ongoing series of surrenders that continue to teach me that in order to survive, and even thrive, I have to adjust myself to meet life's terms, not adjust everything around me to fit my misguided ideals.
When I stop fighting life and mold myself to meet whatever the moment has to offer I find myself moving like a jellyfish, moving to no predefined rhythms and no longer swimming upstream.