I’ve had some disappointment this week, and have been wrestling with some choices about which I am highly ambivalent. The details aren’t important: we all have disappointments and unhappy choices. What I think is important is how we respond.
I told Nicola last night that I was a little worried that if I posted this cartoon — which I’ve had on my wall for years now — people would think I was depressed, suicidal, or bitter-and-twistedly out somewhere kicking down little kids’ sand castles. Me, I’m just here smiling — I think the cartoon is wicked funny and absolutely true.
Sometimes things don’t work out the way I want them too. And for whatever reason, apart from finding it disappointing or scary or frustrating or threatening or meh, no big deal, I also often find it humbling in a way that I’m not sure I can articulate well. Well, okay, yes I can. It’s wounded pride, and it comes from the cultural notion that if we are good enough, strong enough, just work hard enough, we get what we aim for. So if we dream beyond our reach we somehow deserve to fail — we’ve “got above ourselves” and shouldn’t be surprised when the axe falls. For whatever reason, we’ve taken the truth of the matter — sometimes we don’t get what we strive for — and turned it into a personal cause-and-effect failure of character. Hey, you, yeah, the Eskridge kid over in the corner, what the fuck were you thinking? Go sit down.
And the tricky thing is, of course it’s often about personal failure. And there’s also the randomness of the world, the needs and fears and dreams of other people that bang into ours, the Great Whatever that is part of the story of why things don’t always work.
Sometimes it’s hard to parse. And so I’ve decided not to. It only turns into the blame game or the I-am-not-deserving game or, gods help us, the it’s-not-fair game. I’ve been to all those places, and I don’t even like the t-shirts. And I don’t want to sit down.
My dreams and my skills either match, or they don’t. I can walk away, or I can get more skills. If I get more skills, they might still not be enough. So it goes, brothers and sisters, so it goes. We don’t know what will happen. But until the axe falls for real, I’ll be back with my dreams, occasionally getting my pride chopped off.
Because it’s only pride. It grows back.
Excellent decision (not to parse it). Because what else can we do except not give up? The alternative is unacceptable. Maybe the next time the randomness will fall our/your way. With each effort the stats become more favorable. (I’m convinced that randomness is what it was)
I don’t want you to sit down either. So, I applaud you for getting to this spot so quickly. And growing that stuff back.
And for passing the fertilizer.