… worst enemy? …
So, recently I’ve been playing with this theory.. okay, so I play with it repeatedly and excessively, but recently I’ve been taking it to new heights..
I think I’m my own worst enemy.
Time and time again, I see places where I could have achived far more than I did, but I failed because I sabotoged myself. I mean, we start out with some of the more obvious things, like assuming that anyone in the ‘real world’ (as opposed to the network one) that tried to pick me up when I was single was actively hostile towards me, intending to make fun of me, use me as a foil for some really nefarious plot, or worse..
then we look further, to all the progress I could have made on the battery management project (and still can..) if I wouldn’t keep losing momentum right before a key/breakthrough point..
Then we look at my constant belief that I will be fired from any and/or all of my jobs at any time..
Well, okay, so that’s more expecting awful things to happen.. but sometimes it seems like I (inadvertently or not) go out of my way to make bad things happen, and I don’t want to.. I also don’t want to be so negative about everything.. recently, I was complaining about a rebate not being honored because one of the requisite pieces of paper wasn’t included because it wasn’t given to us at the store, and I mused aloud about whether the Sprint employees got bonuses for every rebate that couldn’t be collected because of missing paperwork, and a friend asked me if I got paid extra for every paranoid theory I came up with.
Well, maybe.
But, really, I find it really frustrating when people have nothing good to say about anything, and yet, I’m one of those people who never has anything good to say about anything. And I don’t like it, but I don’t really know how to change. Just once, I wish I could spend a few hours honestly – not self-kiddingly or because I thought it would protect me from the wrath of some higher power – looking at my life and appriceating the beauty, and the good spots, etc. I mean, I have wonderful toys, I have friends to play with (admittedly, I don’t see them very often, but..) there’s a good chance someday soon I’ll have a dog, or a cat, or both.. I’m even slowly getting my life to where it doesn’t bowl me over whenever I look at it funny.. but still, like Mr. Tanner, I only see the flaws.
I don’t want to be so negative any more.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Isn’t self-awareness grand? 🙂
I think realizing these things is the first step. I do this myself ALL the time. So, we’ll have to try to beat this together! One step at a time! Because, you’re smart enough and charming enough to accomplish anything you want in life. I hope you realize that!
September 13th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
It might not be so difficult nor complicated either. But it can’t hurt to have a little faith in the universe and yourself to continue bringing yourself in the right direction in all ways, as you already have been.
Success for failure are still irrelivant. We progress through success and learn through failure. Doesn’t that make it hard to value one so much over the other?
Maybe that could be an example of a reason to try to form a habbit to, for some time, spend more time trying to figure out what things are, why they are and where they fit in the world to see them as part of the whole than to just react to them?
Don’t take yourself too seriously. 🙂 But the problem with the rebates you mentioned is so typical (at least at the source, IMHO) of what you’ll see everywhere these days. People want more, give less. They don’t even know it or care! In fact, they’re bitter, because in part of the same cycle more is asked of them & it’s completely rediculous.
The symmetry that is the way our lives operate (from resource to business to consumer via gov’t, etc) on had a lot of potenial. Teachers these days continue to crank out stupid kids in america. And they want to work less hours for more money! They’re constantly insisting that they get more funding in schools while across the river we see that scenario isn’t working. These kids, less equipped than generations before, seem to naturally inherit some of that mind-set as they try to skate through life expecting to work 7 hours a day 4 days a week at burger king and expect to be able to also drive around in a ferrari. Meanwhile the workers of the country/world don’t get what they want, work too much, get cranky and the quality of their work goes to hell. The checks & balances start to fail as they’re reliant on a system that uses people who’re there to do a job right and next thing you know there’s people being poisoned weekly by the produce they bought… Cops arresting burger flippers for using too much salt… Cops beating people…
And what the hell is up with this term I keep hearing lately “immigrant rights”; it sounds to me like something that people might try to get when they become a citizen, an immigrant (so a citizens right’s wouldn’t be enough?) but… OH! But, they’re trying to get… gov’t enforced “rights” from… some other gov’t? I’m not sure I understand why these people are expecting so much when they just want to leave a country they’ve already ruined. …and I don’t want any of that we took over the land crap – that’s all that people have ever done with land since the first family unit formed. (and then was subsequently taken by a younger, stronger, larger, smarter family)
…as my favorite tagline from VNV’s latest album rings through my mind…
“We conquer paradise, just to burn it to the ground” Saying nothing about how we then look to god and demand more everything and this time we want a better deal too!
People looking to god. Is it just me or doesn’t it seem like a lot of those people out there, the worst on the subject above, are mostly going to be the ones with a closer relationship to ‘god’ in some frabricated religion?
Nah, it’s probably 50/50… I just like to place blame for man’s inability to function on religion. I’m a prick like that.