Missing Out

Do you ever think about how much you would miss out on if everything was done for you? Regardless of whether or not your economics can afford to have absolutely EVERYTHING done for you, while it is nice to have convenience, or to be able to afford it, but how much is too much?

Now I’m sure a long diatribe about how uneven the system would fit in quite nicely right here, and that’s an orbit, but really for the moment I’ve been thinking a lot about, skills, or even knowledge overall. Despite the return of everyone’s favorite WORLD CLASSICS (Racism, sexism [Most of the “isms”], VIOLENCE, Greed etc. etc.) the old standards never seem to completely go away, and really I’m not going to grouse on that too much, at least not right now.

I find myself telling myself, “Shit it’s a damn good thing I know how to do this, cuz I can’t afford to hire someone to do it….” A lot. Kind of always have. I’ve been broke for a long time, but I’d like to thank that hasn’t made me more bitter, but rather more resourceful. It’s not to say I didn’t have privileges and experiences that definitely helped foster my attitude towards the acquisition of skills, absorption of knowledge, gathering data of any kind really.

I’m VERY curious.

About EVERYTHING

No shit, for those who know me or even brushed up against me know I LOVE to talk, but talking is merely an extension of interacting. I can interact with you whether it’s through passionate but respectful debate, long winded but fruitful psycho-explorational conversation, a long and quiet hug when one of us may be bummed, or really just need a hug, to simply being quiet while we just enjoy the presence of another in our sphere. How we interact with things has so much to do with what makes us feel good or bad, what works for us and what doesn’t, things we learn that we’re quite good at to things that while we love them, we don’t have (and will never acquire) the skills or talent for it.

Mine is Drawing by the way. I would love to be able to synthesize the images in my head into visual mediums, but instead I have more of a talent for synthesizing WORDS from the images instead. It almost seems like the line to a quirky RomCom of sorts, but these are the cards we’re dealt, and while I would love to be able to draw (or program/code), but despite my best efforts I have come to grips with the fact that I will never be any good at these things.

And that’s OK. I’ve made my peace with it.

See the cool thing is, that in actually trying to learn how to do things I find out very quickly whether or not it’s for me or I can even accomplish. I sometimes feel like while they don’t lead you to the actual chopping block to have the executioner strike your head from your body for failure in this country,They certainly do NOT make it easy to recover from and certainly want you to feel like not being able to do something or merely misstepping at the wrong time and despite being a badass at it on most days, today…..

Today you got “Got”, you faltered, you fell, you fumbled….

YOU’VE FAILED!

^Now that’s the kind of gravitas they want us to have over our inability to do things or even that we do fuck up from time to time and shit happens. I believe a lot of this come from the fact that up until recently, we equated money with what it means to be successful on every level. Don’t get me wrong, having money is definitely helpful, I say this as I am in the limbo between having jack shit in the bank account at this very moment and getting my first paycheck Literally (not figuratively) next week Wednesday, the 20th of January in the yeeee of our Lawrd Two Thousand & Twenty……

So I get it and don’t worry I don’t plan on going on a rant about how we need to learn to deal with being poor, cuz it sucks, PERIOD. And that is a massive understatement to how much suckage and horseshit, and all of the shitty shiiiiiiity things that come as a symptom of being broke, it TRULY and UTTERLY is NOT EVEN funny., but still crack jokes about, because what else can you do?

“I’ll tell ya what you can do is go back to school, get a better jawb! pick yerself up by yer bootstraps!”

- 'Murica

Which seems was the attitude until just about everyone lost their jobs over the last few years. I’m still unpacking a lot of things myself, as I feel like we should. Like as I’m typing and listening to turns as I do when I’m writing. By the way I have found, at least for myself, is listening to tunes helps with the writer’s block.

Of course stream of consciousness works when too. I still can’t be sure if it all makes sense, but I can be confident in that maybe some of it makes sense? It definitely makes a lot of left turns, but unfortunately, if I make any attempts to steer it in any way the physics causes the train of my thoughts to wreck in a way so catastrophic, it leaves me speechless (again literally) and with no choice but to accept the sulfurous crater that was that thought and move on. There may be survivors, but right now we have to move on.

Ok it’s not that dramatic (usually), but it is very real. Letting my thoughts truly flow is an exercise in letting go. As is accepting that my mom is gonna get really upset around cleaning and we’ll blow up at each other a little, then we’ll “move on” which a long time ago used to drive me nuts.

Not nuts because I was angry, but rather because after tensions ran high with my mom, we never really talked about it. She was so busy trying to keep things afloat and she still works her ass off 7 days a week. Plus my mom and I are 2 different people. I’m sure she confides in my stepdad (I hate step qualifiers by the way, Chris was definitely my dad away from dad), but not really in me. Which I feel was definitely common place and still is in some places.

Anyhow basically I really just wanted to get a better gauge on how she felt about things, why she was upset, but over the years kind of put together my own models and theories. I can’t say for certain, but I’m feel good about my observations and feel I have come to understand my mother much better than I did when I was younger.

Do we still rub each other the wrong way? Oh yeah, especially when we’re working together. The good thing is we move on from it. Instead of me holding onto those things, I had to learn to deal with it, maybe phone a friend and vent for a minute, but ultimately and with finality move on.

Accepting things as what they are also feels like it has negative connotations in the human space. I feel like we all want changes, no matter who you are, but some how when we tell ourselves, “Well… that’s just the way it is….” It comes from a place of defeat, or failure, rather than acceptance.

I will never be able to time travel, but while I was a little bummed at first, I’ve dealt with it and have moved on. Though I still pine for the ability from time to time.

Another thing we seem to do as humans is beat ourselves up over not being able to move on, it’s important, I feel;, to note that dealing with things just the one time doesn’t mean you’re done dealing with it. I mean think about it, when you are dealing with things in life it more often than not is not a single serving thing. It’s usually something that’s gonna take awhile to fully reach closure for myself:

-The efforts to achieve and maintain financial equilibrium are ongoing

-Repair and cleanup of baggage is, as I am just now realizing, a perpetual service that will be needed as long as I’m around. Self Waste Management as a Service, and not an “Event”

-Coming to grips with things as they are for myself.

-Having wild dreams, but reasonable expectations.

-Avoiding Cliches of Balance and being ok with failing at that.

-Most Important: Dealing with myself.

I have learned a lot about myself over the years, but only recently learned to truly set aside time to be with myself, and work more with myself. I feel I can pick up external skills and love to at least learn about all of these things even when I find that it’s not for me, but I wasn’t really working on myself. This all goes into the old world practice of working ourselves to death. We have to remember Work-Life balance is only a recent “mantra” in our collective reality.

That still may not be the case for a lot of us, not just these days. I am grateful to have the opportunity to finally square away my finances, but I feel if you can count on anything with money it’s losing it. The nice thing is my skills are somewhat portable, and very much in demand and of course paying well right now.

I am fortunate to have the opportunities I have had and jumped on them.

I’m probably horribly misquoting my new buddy Justin, but he said something that stuck with me before showing me a picture of him doing the splits in front of Tone Loc, whom we were discussing, after he taught me The Jukebox Game (more on this in another orbit).

I digress…

He mentioned having met him and I was laughing (as I do when I like or am excited about things), he looks at me and with a very matter of fact look on his face:

“I am a Real Person who has done Real Things.”

Then of course he pulls out his phone and shows me a picture of not only him with Tone Loc, but doing the splits in front of Tone Loc. He was also in this moment wearing an absolutely wonderful 3-piece suit with BLUE SUEDE SHOES on. This man is indeed the real deal.

A Real Person who has done Real Things.

^This is true for us all but, and maybe this is just me, carries all the weight of a Buddhist Koan (an “unanswerable” question or puzzle that’s more about looking at your own approach to it than it is answering as understand it.). Somehow not only is it true, but when you really start to thing about it, you start to realize all your experiences are real, and as such you have experience. It may not be in tech support, but whatever it is, you have it, but maybe you don’t perceive it that way.

Isn’t it funny that you should be the foremost expert on yourself, but despite knowing exactly what you can and cannot do, we often fall into these cyclical pitfalls of devaluing ourselves and what were capable while giving tons of credit to how much we fuck up?

We forgo asking real questions of ourselves, being with ourselves, work on and with ourselves. I feel like a lot of us get swept up in everything that’s going on around us we run ourselves into the ground. I feel like self care extends far beyond taking days off when you need to and Treatin’ Yo Self. Part of it is working on yourself.

Of course I think the idea of self help sometimes gets lumped into the umbrella of people writing and telling you how best to not be a loser, which is how some of them sound, but really self help involves I dunno…. Asking for help from those around you. Whether it’s for good advice on your next venture or just getting a good hug, self help shouldn’t be relegated to doing it all yourself.

I feel like most people see this as “Self help means helping yourself…. By yourself….” I feel like the narrative has shifted a bit to “Help yourself by asking for help” and I personally feel like that’s the right direction.

This is no way saying that if you can do it by yourself, by all means do so. As I have tried to instill in people around me: If you expect someone to do something for you, you should expect to at least give up some control of how it turns out. Collaborating with someone is different, of course, but even then, being on a team means that some people are in charge of things, not that you won’t help them with these things as needed, but if this is their area, they are handling it and you should be handling yours as well.

But after that long winded Team analogy, I need to trust that those areas are covered and manage and execute my own things to contribute to the whole. That means I cede control to the other parties in service to a task that I would have a hard time doing on my own. I feel the same away about my personal relationships. If I know you and care for you at any level I feel like you’re on my team. Team as in I feel like we all have each other’s best interest at heart and will act accordingly.

This isn’t to say people can’t be cut from said team, but I feel are human creatures are built to coordinate. As I have mused about before, but teaming up with other people is how we get just about everything done.

I have gathered a lot of skills myself, and at my last job I very literally used them all almost everyday. I had a team of others, but it was massively complex and I am still proud of my work there and proud of what they are doing in my absence. It just became too much for me. Especially on the heals of a hell year, it became too much. I kind of let things fester for a long time instead of being honest with myself and bowing out sooner.

So while we have the potential to miss out on valuable skills if we’re having another person execute tasks for us (not with us), we most definitely miss out when we stop truly looking at, working on, and loving ourselves. You’re the only one capable of doing this in any meaningful and effective way. While I firmly believe you should have at least a few Team Mates in your life both professionally and personally, your team can’t read your mind or suddenly become you. You’re the only one who truly knows you inside and out.

People often say “You OWE it to yourself” and that makes it sounds transactional, even with yourself I dunno about you, I don’t like treating things like business unless it’s called for, and that carries over to my own self care. I am practicing concepts that are helping me, but I also realize now that these things, like many things in life are:

Ongoing…….