I am once again on an Amtrak train, zipping along the Northeast Corridor to New York. I am still not feeling well. My throat is quite sore and I have a cough and stuffiness. But the worst seems to have passed.
Despite the maladies and mishaps that marred my trip, it was actually quite a pleasant one. I got to see the boys every day for more than an entire week. I got to feel like a dad again. On top of that, my ex and I got along extremely well for the duration of my stay. It almost felt like being a family again.
Of course, that involved both of us actively ignoring the multiple 800 pound primates following us around. Whenever such contentious topics came up, conversation stalled and we got back to more agreeable matters. That was mostly my doing, I suppose, but I really didn't want to bog down an already complicated week with further complications.
I return feeling much better, but I also return with a sense of extreme desire to get out of my parents' house. It is unbearable living there now. Saving up money is not going well because of all the little emergencies that come up involving the kids. I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this off.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sickman
Wow, what a week!
I was originally supposed to be up visiting the kids from Saturday to Tuesday, adding an extra day to the Memorial Day weekend.
Well, Sunday night, my 6-year-old started screaming about his ear hurting. We rushed him to the ER, where they found that he had a severe ear infection. When we got out of the ER, the car overheated and broke down in the hospital parking lot.
The following evening, my 3-year-old broke out in hives all over and his eyes puffed up, so we took him to the doctor on Tuesday. Allergies, Benadryl.
While at the doctor's office, my ex-wife was having trouble breathing and began coughing up a combo of blood and green stuff. She has asthma, so any respiratory ailment is worse for her. We went to the ER again. Respiratory infection.
So I ended up extending my visit to help out with getting the older one to school and all, since that now required public transportation and my ex was basically incapacitated.
Then, yesterday, I caught whatever vile illness had knocked the others down. Last night I had a 101 fever and lots of aches and stuffiness. Of course, I'm still bringing my son to school because it's really the only option.
So now I'll be here until Sunday.
Well, at least I'm getting a lot of time with the kids.
I was originally supposed to be up visiting the kids from Saturday to Tuesday, adding an extra day to the Memorial Day weekend.
Well, Sunday night, my 6-year-old started screaming about his ear hurting. We rushed him to the ER, where they found that he had a severe ear infection. When we got out of the ER, the car overheated and broke down in the hospital parking lot.
The following evening, my 3-year-old broke out in hives all over and his eyes puffed up, so we took him to the doctor on Tuesday. Allergies, Benadryl.
While at the doctor's office, my ex-wife was having trouble breathing and began coughing up a combo of blood and green stuff. She has asthma, so any respiratory ailment is worse for her. We went to the ER again. Respiratory infection.
So I ended up extending my visit to help out with getting the older one to school and all, since that now required public transportation and my ex was basically incapacitated.
Then, yesterday, I caught whatever vile illness had knocked the others down. Last night I had a 101 fever and lots of aches and stuffiness. Of course, I'm still bringing my son to school because it's really the only option.
So now I'll be here until Sunday.
Well, at least I'm getting a lot of time with the kids.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Ultimatums
When I was about ten years old or so, I had an arch enemy. I'll call him Steve. He was only my arch enemy in the ten-year-old sort of sense: we were friends, and one day, for some reason, he decided he didn't like me, so we were enemies.
Anyway, a friend of mine, whom I shall call Lothar here, was caught in the middle. He was friends with both Steve and me. Even though I was young, I could sympathize with his situation and only felt a very minor sense of betrayal when Lothar went to hang out with Steve. I knew how it was, and I'd been in his situation before. I knew Lothar was still my friend. Steve, on the other hand, was not so accepting. He gave Lothar an ultimatum: either Lothar had to stop hanging out with me, or he had to stop hanging out with Steve.
Lothar decided to cut off Steve and hang out with me, which was happily surprising to me. I asked Lothar why he'd made such a decision, and he told me that it was because Steve made him choose, and a real friend wouldn't have done that.
The wisdom of that explanation struck me hard, and I internalized it and carry with me to this day. I have thought long and hard about this sort of thing, and I've come to the conclusion that when someone forces you to choose between someone or something else you like and themselves, it is almost always better to choose the something else. I say "almost" because there are notable exceptions, particularly when the something else is harmful to oneself or the world in general (i.e., "You have to stop shooting heroin or you will lose me," or "If you rob that bank I'll never talk to you again."). All things being relatively equal in harmfulness or benefit, you should generally choose the alternative.
Ironically, the situation came up down the line where Lothar himself forced a similar choice for me. My response was typically noncomittal: I refused to make a choice between Lothar and his own arch nemesis, preferring to simply continue hanging out with both of them. Lothar felt hurt and betrayed, and soon after we stopped talking. It was a loss for me and a big one, but I have found that following the guideline outlined above has served me very well over the years. It has inoculated me against the domination of wills superior to my own.
Conversely, when I have failed to heed my own advice, I have found myself confined and frustrated. I have found myself doing things that I did not want to do for reasons I could not really explain, even to myself.
The moral of the story here: People who give you ultimatums are generally attempting to exert control over you. To accept the ultimatum is to relinquish authority of one's own will. When someone offers you an ultimatum that is, in your judgement, unnecessary or unproductive, reject it, even if it means rejecting that person. If they are worth keeping around, they will back off and accept your rejection of the ultimatum. Or they will leave. In a sense, rejection of the ultimatum turns it back on the one offering: you force them to choose between accepting your lack of choice or leaving you.
This relates back to an earlier post about acceptance being the most important element of a relationship. One who accepts does not offer ultimatums. If ultimatums are offered in a relationship, it is usually a sign that something is wrong with it.
Anyway, a friend of mine, whom I shall call Lothar here, was caught in the middle. He was friends with both Steve and me. Even though I was young, I could sympathize with his situation and only felt a very minor sense of betrayal when Lothar went to hang out with Steve. I knew how it was, and I'd been in his situation before. I knew Lothar was still my friend. Steve, on the other hand, was not so accepting. He gave Lothar an ultimatum: either Lothar had to stop hanging out with me, or he had to stop hanging out with Steve.
Lothar decided to cut off Steve and hang out with me, which was happily surprising to me. I asked Lothar why he'd made such a decision, and he told me that it was because Steve made him choose, and a real friend wouldn't have done that.
The wisdom of that explanation struck me hard, and I internalized it and carry with me to this day. I have thought long and hard about this sort of thing, and I've come to the conclusion that when someone forces you to choose between someone or something else you like and themselves, it is almost always better to choose the something else. I say "almost" because there are notable exceptions, particularly when the something else is harmful to oneself or the world in general (i.e., "You have to stop shooting heroin or you will lose me," or "If you rob that bank I'll never talk to you again."). All things being relatively equal in harmfulness or benefit, you should generally choose the alternative.
Ironically, the situation came up down the line where Lothar himself forced a similar choice for me. My response was typically noncomittal: I refused to make a choice between Lothar and his own arch nemesis, preferring to simply continue hanging out with both of them. Lothar felt hurt and betrayed, and soon after we stopped talking. It was a loss for me and a big one, but I have found that following the guideline outlined above has served me very well over the years. It has inoculated me against the domination of wills superior to my own.
Conversely, when I have failed to heed my own advice, I have found myself confined and frustrated. I have found myself doing things that I did not want to do for reasons I could not really explain, even to myself.
The moral of the story here: People who give you ultimatums are generally attempting to exert control over you. To accept the ultimatum is to relinquish authority of one's own will. When someone offers you an ultimatum that is, in your judgement, unnecessary or unproductive, reject it, even if it means rejecting that person. If they are worth keeping around, they will back off and accept your rejection of the ultimatum. Or they will leave. In a sense, rejection of the ultimatum turns it back on the one offering: you force them to choose between accepting your lack of choice or leaving you.
This relates back to an earlier post about acceptance being the most important element of a relationship. One who accepts does not offer ultimatums. If ultimatums are offered in a relationship, it is usually a sign that something is wrong with it.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Decisions, decisions
Life occasionally presents us with difficult, seemingly impossible choices. We're forced by circumstance to choose between one form of agony and another. Get burned by fire or get frozen by cold. How do we make these decisions, and how responsible are we for their outcomes?
Let's say you are faced with a Sophie's Choice situation. You have two children, Child A and Child B, and you must decide which of them will live and which of them will die. What criteria do you use to make your decision? Do you simply flip a coin, and if so, does that absolve you of any responsibility for the choice? Do you try to approach it rationally, reasoning out which sacrifice would be the greater loss or which life would be the greatest gain for yourself or the world?
The way I see it, whatever way you go about making the choice, you are ultimately fully responsible for it. The death of one child falls squarely on your shoulders. However, the saving of one child's life falls there equally. It is your burden to bear. Does this sound unfair? After all, someone or something has placed you in this impossible situation. It isn't your fault, is it?
No, of course not. The fact that you are in such a situation is not your fault at all. However, the choice you make is entirely yours. Even if you refuse to make the choice, your abdication is on your shoulders. It matters not whether the situation was forced on you or you got yourself into it. What you do with the situation you are in is fully on you.
By what reasoning? By this: Your decision, whatever it is and however it is made, is a necessity for the carrying out of its consequences. Child A will be put to death only if you choose so, and Child B will live only if you choose so. Regardless of how you reached such a terrible crossroads, the journey forward is a choice you must make. It is a choice that you cannot escape, for every option has an outcome, and you are entering into this one knowing clearly what the outcomes are.
Let's try it with a somewhat less atrocious predicament. Imagine two young men, Zanzibar and Paco.
Zanzibar has grown up in a good neighborhood. His parents have a lot of money and sent him to the best schools. Though very bright, he did not apply himself very well and had mediocre grades. By virtue of his mother's connections, however he got into a good college. He graduated around the middle of his class. Due to his school's pedigree, however, he was able to land a well-paying job that required far less intelligence or knowledge than he had, allowing him to spend his days unchallenged.
Paco grew up in a slum. He was raised by a single mother, a drug addict, and had to help raise his two younger siblings. He was very smart, but his sense of duty to his family caused him to drop out of high school and take a job as a retail clerk. He was promoted to a supervisory position, but his lack of a college degree prevented him from promotion to management. Eventually, once his siblings were older, he took courses and was able to become a store manager.
Both men are now thirty years old. Zanzibar enjoys a cushy office job that pays well and has several rental properties inherited from his deceased parents. Paco is a retail store manager struggling to make ends meet. His younger brother still lives off him and cannot hold down a job. They share an apartment in the same neighborhood where they grew up.
How responsible is each man for his situation?
I say fully. Again, this may seem strikingly unfair. To clarify, neither man is responsible for the situation into which he was born. That is not a choice. But both men are fully responsible for what they have done with what they were given. Zanzibar certainly had many choices along the way that could have led to a variety of different outcomes, both better and worse. The same is true for Paco.
What a person does with what he is given is entirely up to him. The playing field is always uneven from the start. Those who refuse to improve their situations due to the very real unfairness into which they are born are fully responsible for what they become. Those who are handed a good situation and coast by are also fully responsible for what they become.
Life will continually place obstacles along the paths we carve out for ourselves. Unforeseen tragedies and unexpected prizes shape our lives in many ways. Each poses us with a question: how will you handle this? Our response is our own, and we must accept full responsibility for it. We surely make some mistakes and miscalculations. We intend one outcome and achieve another instead. It can be tempting to throw one's hands up, to quit on life. That is always an option. Each moment we are alive, we are choosing not only to continue living, but to do what we do with the lives we have.
Each of us has the option to stop playing the game at any time. It is fairly easy to simply stop. If we choose not to, however - if we choose to continue playing - we accept the rules of the singular game we have been invited to play. We may look around at others playing other games and think we'd rather be playing those games, but we have not been invited to those games. We can choose either the game to which we have been invited or no game at all. If we choose to play, we are responsible - fully responsible - for that choice.
I will continue this with my ideas on how to make difficult decisions in a later post.
Let's say you are faced with a Sophie's Choice situation. You have two children, Child A and Child B, and you must decide which of them will live and which of them will die. What criteria do you use to make your decision? Do you simply flip a coin, and if so, does that absolve you of any responsibility for the choice? Do you try to approach it rationally, reasoning out which sacrifice would be the greater loss or which life would be the greatest gain for yourself or the world?
The way I see it, whatever way you go about making the choice, you are ultimately fully responsible for it. The death of one child falls squarely on your shoulders. However, the saving of one child's life falls there equally. It is your burden to bear. Does this sound unfair? After all, someone or something has placed you in this impossible situation. It isn't your fault, is it?
No, of course not. The fact that you are in such a situation is not your fault at all. However, the choice you make is entirely yours. Even if you refuse to make the choice, your abdication is on your shoulders. It matters not whether the situation was forced on you or you got yourself into it. What you do with the situation you are in is fully on you.
By what reasoning? By this: Your decision, whatever it is and however it is made, is a necessity for the carrying out of its consequences. Child A will be put to death only if you choose so, and Child B will live only if you choose so. Regardless of how you reached such a terrible crossroads, the journey forward is a choice you must make. It is a choice that you cannot escape, for every option has an outcome, and you are entering into this one knowing clearly what the outcomes are.
Let's try it with a somewhat less atrocious predicament. Imagine two young men, Zanzibar and Paco.
Zanzibar has grown up in a good neighborhood. His parents have a lot of money and sent him to the best schools. Though very bright, he did not apply himself very well and had mediocre grades. By virtue of his mother's connections, however he got into a good college. He graduated around the middle of his class. Due to his school's pedigree, however, he was able to land a well-paying job that required far less intelligence or knowledge than he had, allowing him to spend his days unchallenged.
Paco grew up in a slum. He was raised by a single mother, a drug addict, and had to help raise his two younger siblings. He was very smart, but his sense of duty to his family caused him to drop out of high school and take a job as a retail clerk. He was promoted to a supervisory position, but his lack of a college degree prevented him from promotion to management. Eventually, once his siblings were older, he took courses and was able to become a store manager.
Both men are now thirty years old. Zanzibar enjoys a cushy office job that pays well and has several rental properties inherited from his deceased parents. Paco is a retail store manager struggling to make ends meet. His younger brother still lives off him and cannot hold down a job. They share an apartment in the same neighborhood where they grew up.
How responsible is each man for his situation?
I say fully. Again, this may seem strikingly unfair. To clarify, neither man is responsible for the situation into which he was born. That is not a choice. But both men are fully responsible for what they have done with what they were given. Zanzibar certainly had many choices along the way that could have led to a variety of different outcomes, both better and worse. The same is true for Paco.
What a person does with what he is given is entirely up to him. The playing field is always uneven from the start. Those who refuse to improve their situations due to the very real unfairness into which they are born are fully responsible for what they become. Those who are handed a good situation and coast by are also fully responsible for what they become.
Life will continually place obstacles along the paths we carve out for ourselves. Unforeseen tragedies and unexpected prizes shape our lives in many ways. Each poses us with a question: how will you handle this? Our response is our own, and we must accept full responsibility for it. We surely make some mistakes and miscalculations. We intend one outcome and achieve another instead. It can be tempting to throw one's hands up, to quit on life. That is always an option. Each moment we are alive, we are choosing not only to continue living, but to do what we do with the lives we have.
Each of us has the option to stop playing the game at any time. It is fairly easy to simply stop. If we choose not to, however - if we choose to continue playing - we accept the rules of the singular game we have been invited to play. We may look around at others playing other games and think we'd rather be playing those games, but we have not been invited to those games. We can choose either the game to which we have been invited or no game at all. If we choose to play, we are responsible - fully responsible - for that choice.
I will continue this with my ideas on how to make difficult decisions in a later post.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
To Boldly Go...
I just watched the new Star Trek movie. Very good stuff. Not really comparable to the other Star Trek films, I'd say. It had a vastly different feel. It is the most literal reboot I think I've ever seen.
SPOILER ALERT
Other supposed reboots have essentially been continuations of earlier incarnations. This one really does go back to the start and say, "let's make believe this happened instead," thereby taking it in a new direction. It is bold indeed.
Star Trek has often made use of the idea of multiple timelines. Essentially, this movie is the first step in an alternate timeline. Rather than being a prequel, it really does cover new ground, and there is no guarantee that the future will unfold as it did, freeing the franchise from the bonds of its heavy history. It's not even just that the same future isn't guaranteed, either. It is no longer possible. Vulcan is gone. Pike's leadership of the beloved Enterprise is incredibly short-lived. It could go anywhere, and that's great.
I'm not what you'd really call a Trekkie. I liked the shows, loved The Next Generation in particular. But I'm no purist, and I can't speak Klingon or anything. But I know the show and the movies reasonably well (actually, I didn't see the last two movies - while I preferred TNG to the original, I didn't care for the TNG movies too much).
It looks like the old creature has its legs back.
SPOILER ALERT
Other supposed reboots have essentially been continuations of earlier incarnations. This one really does go back to the start and say, "let's make believe this happened instead," thereby taking it in a new direction. It is bold indeed.
Star Trek has often made use of the idea of multiple timelines. Essentially, this movie is the first step in an alternate timeline. Rather than being a prequel, it really does cover new ground, and there is no guarantee that the future will unfold as it did, freeing the franchise from the bonds of its heavy history. It's not even just that the same future isn't guaranteed, either. It is no longer possible. Vulcan is gone. Pike's leadership of the beloved Enterprise is incredibly short-lived. It could go anywhere, and that's great.
I'm not what you'd really call a Trekkie. I liked the shows, loved The Next Generation in particular. But I'm no purist, and I can't speak Klingon or anything. But I know the show and the movies reasonably well (actually, I didn't see the last two movies - while I preferred TNG to the original, I didn't care for the TNG movies too much).
It looks like the old creature has its legs back.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
If ignorance is bliss, why do I want to know anything?
I was thinking about the Adam and Eve story from the Bible once, long ago, and came to the conclusion that the basic idea behind it, take away all the religious language, is that ignorance is bliss. Once man acquires knowledge, he can no longer dwell in paradise. The idea that the attainment of knowledge is more a curse than a blessing comes up time and again. The more we learn, the more we realize how terrible everything is. Even H.P. Lovecraft said, in The Call of Cthulhu, "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." How true.
Yet, for all the pain brought by increased knowledge, I find that I am compelled to continue increasing it. Do I have some masochistic need to punish myself? I don't think so. So why, with the understanding that by acquiring knowledge I will be removed further from the blissful paradise of ignorance, do I continue trying to acquire it? Would it not be wiser for me to get a lobotomy?
The short answer is that I don't know. It seems to be an inborn drive to understand. One can understand it from an evolutionary standpoint: those with the most knowledge have historically had the best chance of survival. So maybe it is just that.
But I question whether that rule is still in place. Can one acquire too much knowledge? Can knowledge become oppressive?
Certainly it can ruin things. For me the drive is very strong. I can't seem to refuse knowledge if it is offered to me. I read movie spoilers. I poke my nose around in dark places. I just can't help myself. I get a certain sense of happiness from learning something new, but that happiness doesn't accumulate. I have lost much of the wonder I had as a child. I once wrote a song about it called "At the Fairgrounds", which equated getting older with thinking of cotton candy as tooth decay and stars as fusion reactors.
So I find that I have these competing drives: one to seek knowledge, and one to seek wonder. I love the seemingly inexplicable, yet I am compelled to try to explain it. I am not one of those people who could go without knowing what their child's sex would be. I wanted to know ASAP. I am not the sort of person who can easily leave an unopened mystery package sitting on the table. I want to know what's inside. The drive to knowledge is more powerful than the drive to wonder in me.
I wonder sometimes if these dual drives are the cause of a good deal of stress for me. Or, perhaps, are they more beneficial? Are they what keeps me moving forward?
I don't know, but I'd really like to find out...
Yet, for all the pain brought by increased knowledge, I find that I am compelled to continue increasing it. Do I have some masochistic need to punish myself? I don't think so. So why, with the understanding that by acquiring knowledge I will be removed further from the blissful paradise of ignorance, do I continue trying to acquire it? Would it not be wiser for me to get a lobotomy?
The short answer is that I don't know. It seems to be an inborn drive to understand. One can understand it from an evolutionary standpoint: those with the most knowledge have historically had the best chance of survival. So maybe it is just that.
But I question whether that rule is still in place. Can one acquire too much knowledge? Can knowledge become oppressive?
Certainly it can ruin things. For me the drive is very strong. I can't seem to refuse knowledge if it is offered to me. I read movie spoilers. I poke my nose around in dark places. I just can't help myself. I get a certain sense of happiness from learning something new, but that happiness doesn't accumulate. I have lost much of the wonder I had as a child. I once wrote a song about it called "At the Fairgrounds", which equated getting older with thinking of cotton candy as tooth decay and stars as fusion reactors.
So I find that I have these competing drives: one to seek knowledge, and one to seek wonder. I love the seemingly inexplicable, yet I am compelled to try to explain it. I am not one of those people who could go without knowing what their child's sex would be. I wanted to know ASAP. I am not the sort of person who can easily leave an unopened mystery package sitting on the table. I want to know what's inside. The drive to knowledge is more powerful than the drive to wonder in me.
I wonder sometimes if these dual drives are the cause of a good deal of stress for me. Or, perhaps, are they more beneficial? Are they what keeps me moving forward?
I don't know, but I'd really like to find out...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Why do I keep playing these apps?
I have spent far too much time in recent days playing pointless, mindless apps that I've found on Facebook and in other places, most notably Candystand. I usually play them while I'm doing something else, like waiting for another program to finish running at work or talking on the phone. But once in awhile, most often very late at night when I should be sleeping, I find myself going back for just one more game. And then I'm on for another half hour.
The behavior is entirely non-goal-oriented. I get no thrill from beating a previous high score or besting friends. To be honest, I really don't know why I keep playing these things. They aren't really doing anything except wasting brain capacity on something with no redeeming value. I try to make excuses. I mean, I mostly play puzzle games, so they've got to be sharpening my mind in some way, right? But I know that's not why I'm playing them.
So what is it about these little flash apps that keeps me coming back? Is it that I need my brain to be stimulated in some way other than watching the status bar on a program? No. I mean yes, I do, but that's not the reason. Is it that I'm trying to stay up too late yet again? Certainly not.
I suppose it's really the total pointlessness itself that draws me. There is no pressure involved. There is no goal to achieve. There is only the game, and the outcome matters little. The game eases my mind. It forces me to take a bit of focus off the mundane existence into which I've fallen. There are no consequences for poor performance.
I suppose it comes down to my personality type.
Psychologists classify personalities into one of four broad categories, and the one into which you fall is mostly determined by genetics and is etched into the biology of your brain (according to a recent study). The four types:
Now, these traits have kept me out of trouble in some ways. I don't drink or use drugs, for instance, and I am usually prepared in some way for worst case scenarios. But they've also hindered me quite a bit in life. My ex-wife is a pure novelty seeker, and novelty seekers really do not mix well at all with harm avoiders. I wanted to pursue a career in music, but I could not stomach the uncertainty. I miss out on opportunities because I don't even see them in front of me.
I know these things about myself, yet I find it incredibly difficult to change them. Do I accept that I am like this and live my life as I am comfortable, or do I continue to try to change myself to become what I perceive as better? Is the latter simply a futile effort that will only leave me frustrated or disappointed, or is that very view a product of my personality?
I do know that I gave it my best shot while I was married. I really did try hard to change. Ultimately, I always fell back into my natural behavior. Can I accept myself as being less than my ideal self? Should I?
I really don't know the answers.
The behavior is entirely non-goal-oriented. I get no thrill from beating a previous high score or besting friends. To be honest, I really don't know why I keep playing these things. They aren't really doing anything except wasting brain capacity on something with no redeeming value. I try to make excuses. I mean, I mostly play puzzle games, so they've got to be sharpening my mind in some way, right? But I know that's not why I'm playing them.
So what is it about these little flash apps that keeps me coming back? Is it that I need my brain to be stimulated in some way other than watching the status bar on a program? No. I mean yes, I do, but that's not the reason. Is it that I'm trying to stay up too late yet again? Certainly not.
I suppose it's really the total pointlessness itself that draws me. There is no pressure involved. There is no goal to achieve. There is only the game, and the outcome matters little. The game eases my mind. It forces me to take a bit of focus off the mundane existence into which I've fallen. There are no consequences for poor performance.
I suppose it comes down to my personality type.
Psychologists classify personalities into one of four broad categories, and the one into which you fall is mostly determined by genetics and is etched into the biology of your brain (according to a recent study). The four types:
- Harm avoidance
- Reward dependence
- Novelty seeking
- Persistence
Now, these traits have kept me out of trouble in some ways. I don't drink or use drugs, for instance, and I am usually prepared in some way for worst case scenarios. But they've also hindered me quite a bit in life. My ex-wife is a pure novelty seeker, and novelty seekers really do not mix well at all with harm avoiders. I wanted to pursue a career in music, but I could not stomach the uncertainty. I miss out on opportunities because I don't even see them in front of me.
I know these things about myself, yet I find it incredibly difficult to change them. Do I accept that I am like this and live my life as I am comfortable, or do I continue to try to change myself to become what I perceive as better? Is the latter simply a futile effort that will only leave me frustrated or disappointed, or is that very view a product of my personality?
I do know that I gave it my best shot while I was married. I really did try hard to change. Ultimately, I always fell back into my natural behavior. Can I accept myself as being less than my ideal self? Should I?
I really don't know the answers.
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