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KazParticipantOh, and I don’t know if this is against the rules or not, but if a picture paints a thousand words, then feel free to look at some random photos I have online, my twitter feed, anything you need to reassure yourself that I’m being straight and direct:
I don’t hide who I am, and perhaps this will give you a better sense of who you’re talking to.
I don’t partake in these kinds of discussions at all, so feel free to google away until you’re content that I’m not some kind of attention seeking “me” junky.
Kaz
KazParticipantHi Matt,
Yeah, the guy in the mirror is of course actually, in reality, me. Absolutely. But he’s not the me I should be and I struggle with that.
I can get super specific on this point.
I grew up in a backwater with a bad local dentist and a mother that wasn’t paying attention, and so I have three teeth missing from my mouth. Teeth that were entirely healthy when they were pulled, that were removed because “my mouth didn’t have room for them” (at the age of 10 or so, when I hadn’t even stopped growing yet!), and that more than likely, I’ll never get back (more than likely, because growing new teeth is an active area of research in dentistry at the moment!).
The me that I should be, is the one that had been looked after properly. One where my mother actually engaged her brain once in a while (she was actually a very knowledgeable woman, a biology teacher), and when the dentist made that suggestion, she could have noticed that it really wasn’t in my best interest and that I would have to live the rest of my life without those teeth.
The person I should be, is the one that was cared for properly. The person I’m left with, is the one who is the sum of all of his and his parent’s mistakes and that’s what I see when I look in the mirror. It doesn’t pain me particularly. It is what it is. It makes me slightly angry from time to time though. 🙁
Kaz
KazParticipantHi again Anita,
I’m going to choose to ignore your latest post, which I only just noticed, as it doesn’t really feel like it came from a positive place.
Remember that I did come here to get help with my motivation, absolutely, and the last time I checked, this sub-forum was called ‘purpose’, so that seems appropriate. Also remember that I included my whole story for completeness, so that all of the possibly relevant data was present and accounted for. At no point did I state that I wanted to engage in discussion about the most traumatic parts of my life, I just didn’t avoid talking about them when asked about them. I didn’t avoid talking about them, because even though I generally feel ok about them, or at least have made an amount of peace with them, I accepted the possibility that they might be relevant to solving the problem at hand.
While many emotional issues do involve amounts of distress, I’m amazed that you think a lack of motivation or purpose in my life, has to be distressing in order for it to be something that needs to be addressed? Take a moment and consider that. Also, consider that ones tolerance for distress is probably somewhat proportional to the amount of distress that they have endured during their life, and I have endured enough of it to be fairly philosophical about most trials and setbacks. At no point during this discussion have I gotten particularly emotional about any of it, though I shed a tear when I wrote about my mother, and when I read about the little boy holding the book, but that was sadness, not distress.
I’ve already made it reasonably clear that on any given day, I’m generally ok with the choices I’ve made and where I’ve ended up, as my personality type is one that can accept or at least one that can convince myself to accept my lot.
All the above said, there are lots of things that I would like to change, a different kind of life I would like to live ultimately if I was better at pursuing my dreams, but I tend to dream a lot more than I act, so have trouble getting what I want. In this current compact version of my life though, I’d be happy for the life I’m living to be sustainable, and unfortunately my productivity is a limiting factor there. I’ve been burning through my savings for some time in order to fund my current lifestyle, but they will run out, and when they do, I will have no choice but to adapt to a new way of living that may be more uncomfortable and more of a shock than if I had chosen to find a new, more productive (and income providing!) balance.
My apologies for not replying to yesterday’s message sooner, but unfortunately it was just one of those things. My brother called while I was writing it, and we spent some time discussing employment opportunities in the wider world and what he thought I should be doing with my life. Both of my brothers have expressed concern about the way I’ve been living my life in recent months, and those expressions were in fact the catalyst that brought me here in the first place. A pro-active attempt to try and get things back on track.
I can be here for those reasons, and trying to ultimately change my life in a positive way, and still ultimately be, a flawed, self-centred human being. I am. In my defence, it’s quite easy to be self-centred when you are the only player in your life due to living a life of seclusion. I “work” from home, live at home, get my groceries delivered and probably leave my house once every couple of weeks for the odd drink with friends. My life pretty much just involves me.
Kaz
KazParticipantHi Anita,
Apologies for not posting this yesterday, I got interrupted with a phone call and forgot to hit submit!
I think the experimental approach you outline is certainly one way of moving forward, but I feel that Matt’s correct with the book metaphor with regards to why I feel the way I do, and that relying on that part of my brain even more would be a mistake. Not because it wouldn’t be a powerful tool in helping me move forward in an effective and constructive way, but because it would only increase my reliance on that part of my brain even more, when arguably, it already has too much influence on the way I understand the world and myself.
That doesn’t mean I’ll abandon it completely, I just need to get out of the habit of it being my default tool. Spontaneous joy is hard to experience when it has to first pass through my analytical filter, though that’s a sacrifice I’ve made up to this point because that analytical filter is just as good at numbing spontaneous pain. I think it’s like you said regarding a wise mind being made up of a both a rational mind and an emotional mind, and I’ve let myself become too polarised in my thinking.
There will undoubtedly be times that I’ll need to apply it to control my emotional state, specifically, there are times I can get a bit (only a bit!) manic, so during those occasions that I’m feeling almost euphoric, I try to keep things in perspective and balance out my emotional state using my rational mind so that I don’t have to deal with the lows that come after if I let myself fly free. So yeah, that’s a use of the rational mind that I intend to keep using.
Going forward, I will undoubtedly fall back on my analytical mind at times without even realising it, as it’s use is far too natural for me to just turn off, but I’m hoping that I can catch myself when I do that, and consciously choose to turn it off…when it’s appropriate of course!
Kaz
KazParticipantHi Matt,
You said:
Do you love yourself, Kaz? You analyze yourself, follow your desires, but do you feel warmth and happiness when you look in the mirror? Do you think love is something that has to be earned?
I don’t know whether those are typically hard questions to answer, but finding one that works for me is proving difficult at the moment. My initial instinct was to say “of course!, why wouldn’t i?”, but it doesn’t really fit. I can’t say I love myself. I can say I’m comfortable with who I am and generally accepting of myself, while wishing I was better.
I look in the mirror frequently. My health took a bit of a hit when Chris passed and I’d always thought that the stress of what happened took it’s toll. However, a couple of years ago, a physical issue that had been suppressing my circulatory system resolved itself by chance, and I realised that actually the thing that took it’s toll on my health was a skiing accident I had in January of 2006! It was just close enough in time to Chris’ death that I mistook the cause and effect and erroneously believed that the issue was something that couldn’t really be fixed directly (because I was assuming the cause was stress based, not physically based). This effect of the issue wasn’t something really obvious, but a gentle guiding force preventing my body from healing itself properly and setting my health on a general downward trajectory.
I mention this, because it has an effect on what I see when I look in the mirror.
What I see when I look in the mirror is someone who looks far worse than he did in 2005, but a lot better than how he looked even in 2014. Unfortunately, the best part of a decade of declining health hasn’t been kind, and though my health improves noticeably every day, it’s clearly going to take a year or two more before I look like the fully healthy version of myself again.
I know you weren’t really talking from an aesthetic viewpoint, but when I look in the mirror I see the imperfections that stop me from looking like the best version of myself. I’m not talking about wanting to change my features, nose jobs and the like, I’m talking about the quality of my skin, hair, eyes, teeth. The good news is that some of those things improve every day. I actually have grey hairs that are turning dark brown again, such was the extreme poor state of my health! (well, I did. I recently dyed my hair blonde to connect to my mother a little bit, so my natural hair colour is a little bit irrelevant at this point!)
So ultimately, when I look in the mirror, I see the imperfections. What needs fixing. But these aren’t the insecurities of an immature mind worrying about what their peers will think. These are the objective assessments of an analytical person, who knows that it’s possible for someone to love me with these imperfections, but that I can’t really love myself fully until they’re fixed, because the person I see isn’t the real me.
I’m a bit vain though!
Love, I believe can be given freely. People with generous souls do that all the time, with their acts of charity and care for complete strangers that haven’t done anything that would make you say they deserve that love. But that’s ok, as it’s their love to give freely, and they are free to give it as often as they want and to whomever they want. I also think those people are the exceptions. The people I encounter daily in my life don’t give love freely, but then these aren’t people that I know. When it comes to love given with people I have pre-existing relationships with, I would say that it’s given freely, but there is a prerequisite level of trust required that allows that love to be given freely. Ultimately, I think love is given freely, but most people protect themselves a little bit as they want to know that there will be some kind of return on their investment.
Kaz
KazParticipantHi Anita, and thank you for your reply. I found it very interesting!
The tree metaphor you employed certainly resonates with me and makes me feel that you’re undoubtedly on to something there.
You actually reminded me of a misstep I made after Chris and them my mum died. I say misstep, because what I wanted to achieve at that time, while logically sensible and understandable, was a little bit foolish in that I ignored the emotional requirements of my existence. I shall elaborate.
At that time, I was striving to be the best, most independent version of myself. I was probably a little bit more intense, a bit more bullish, because I’d recovered pretty well from Chris’ passing, was still professionally successful, and still hadn’t really dealt with my mother’s passing (I’ve only really started to feel better about that as recently as the start of the year). It was a mission and there used to be something I would say to justify my pursuit of it. It was this:
“By definition, the worst period in your life will be the moment you find yourself alone, without anyone to turn to for support, and without the capacity to save yourself.” (or something like that, I’m a bit fuzzy on it now!)
So I reasoned, being independent, self sufficient and skilled, would mean that I would be prepared for the worst time of my life the next time it came around. It’s funny really, but in many ways, I’ve ended up where I am today intentionally and because of that train of thought itself.
Now I don’t think that statement was wrong really, just that I probably took the wrong conclusion from it. A more emotionally stable version of myself would probably suggest that if not having anyone to rely on is the worst thing that can happen, then perhaps the solution is to avoid being alone! Of course, with my history, I understand why I reached the conclusion I did, and why I was so focussed on avoiding future pain.
Anyway, I thought that was a curious side note, but you’re right. I’ve reduced my emotional footprint and traded it for an amount of security and an amount of self sufficiency. Perhaps it was necessary to survive, I don’t know, but it’s something I need to undo now.
In truth, I don’t really know how to proceed. Everyone know’s I’m self-sufficient so there’s not really a support network in place. Some people can turn to family and friends in a heartbeat for support, but that’s very very far from my personal situation.
To make an overly simplistic statement, clearly I need to branch out emotionally. Make connections with people and let them help me. Love and allow myself to be loved. To allow myself to rely on others.
In practice, it’s going to very hard to do any of those things. I feel like I’m in a little bit of a catch-22 situation as there is a definite hierarchy of needs where each depends on the other. Probably goes a little bit like:
Motivation depends on love and emotional footprint.
Love/emotional footprint depends on a partner (most likely given my family situation).
Getting a partner depends on wealth/success (at my age certainly, where people are concerned with building families).
Wealth/success depends on motivation. Go back to point one!Obviously there is a circular dependency there, and it’s going to be hard to move forward without managing to solve one of those things first.
At this point in time, it seems that the most likely way forward would be to start working for other people. It would unblock that circular list and provide a way forward, but it would also mean putting my own projects that I’ve worked on for the last five years to one side. Perhaps that’s a worthwhile sacrifice to achieve a more balanced existence, but it’s one that I’m going to have a hard time making.
The only other level I can think of moving forward on is the love one. I wonder if it’s possible that doing some volunteer work and choosing to give love freely with no expectation of return might allow for some emotional growth and therefore motivational too. I don’t know, it’s possible it might just end up being an emotional drain instead.
I think at this point, my analytical skills aren’t going to be much help. Some action is undoubtedly required and some participation in the wider world. I hope I manage to find out how to do that.
Kaz
KazParticipantHi Matt,
Thank you for your consideration, measured words, and reasoned opinion.
I will endeavour to do the things you say, to reassess, reframe, and otherwise question my conclusion regarding what happened.
However, I have to admit that the vindictive nature of the act, while beyond question, is somewhat hard to reconcile with the person I knew, and so a little bit at odds with my own (well, current) conclusions on the matter.
The person I knew in our life together was funny, kind, gentle and sweet. She of course had her faults, but they were greatly outweighed by her positive attributes and the spiteful side of her only appeared rarely…generally when she perceived our bond was in jeopardy, whether that was from an outside source, or more typically when my attention was focussed on a family member.
My general view of her, makes it rather difficult for me to feel negatively towards her. I rather feel, that just like me, there was a moment in time where she lost herself. Where she wasn’t thinking clearly and she made a mistake, a fatal one as it happens, one that there’s no coming back from, but a mistake nonetheless.
I have done good in my life and I have done bad. I hope that when I am assessed by others that the positive outweighs the negative and that I’m not judged by my worst acts solely. That also means that I can’t judge Chris on the basis of one act solely. I have to give her the benefit of the doubt. That one act was uncharacteristic for her, and if her right minded self could have observed it, I’m sure she would have had a hard time understanding how she could do such a thing.
I don’t want you to think I’m brushing your advice to one side. I’ll certainly meditate on the subject and try to reconcile your interpretation with my own, but in being upfront about my feelings, I have to communicate and be forthright about the slight disconnect there is at this particular point in time.
Regardless of that disconnect, I greatly appreciate your council on the subject and am thankful that you were here to dispense your perspective on the subject!
Kaz
KazParticipantHi Matt and thank you for your thought provoking reply.
I had a little bit of trouble working out how the metaphors applied exactly, but you’ve made me think enough about things to have a stab at it.
When Chris died, it was really my intellect that saved me. I would replay the arguments preceding her death over and over in my head, with what-ifs and why-didn’t-is, and by using my fairly analytical brain, I was able to play things through to some sort of logical conclusion. Sometime soon after, those same questions would repeat themselves over, and I’d go through the same rationalisations and eventually come to the same conclusions again. In the end I was able to notice the patterns and able to stop the replays before they really got started because I knew I’d already worked out the outcomes. I also had a little mantra that I said at that point in my life to help get over my worries and anxieties: “Don’t worry about the past because you can’t change it, and don’t worry about the future because you can’t control it”.
The problem, if I’m understanding your story correctly, is that my analytical brain has become something of a crutch. It saved me then and has been my primary tool that I have employed ever since, and so when I feel like things aren’t right, I engage that part of myself to try and work out what’s going wrong and that has led me to view my life through the filter of an over analysed past.
I think you’re saying that I need to address what I’m feeling now, rather than trying to understand how my past has contributed to me becoming the person I am.
In an attempt to speak in the here and now:
It’s true that I do feel alone, unloved, unseen, unheard, but I’ve learned to live with that somehow. I do feel that even my closest friends don’t know me, and yet I think I share (or shared at some point) my inner thoughts completely with them, so I don’t know why I feel that way.
Regarding sadness. I know I’m very sad. It’s been a constant in my life for a long time, but I try not to dwell on it because I don’t see it ever leaving me. I’m sad because there are things in my past that I’m deeply unhappy about. Things I can never rectify or change and will regret until the day I die. It’s not a question of forgiveness. I don’t hold myself responsible for Chris’ death. Her actions were her own. I am only responsible for my own actions and hers was not a proportional response to what had occurred. I can say those things and feel that way, and yet still be overwhelmingly sad about what happened. I am.
It’s almost ten years later. For most of that time I’ve rarely thought about her during my waking hours, and yet she’s constantly present in my dreams. That’s how I really know that there’s no getting past it, because that’s something that’s completely outside my control.
But it’s ok. What happened took it’s toll on my mind, but I’m fairly passive regarding how I feel about it. It’s just something I will always have to live with, so I just try not dwell on it. The funny thing is that we were together for almost eleven years and I can’t for the life of me, remember any of it…
Kaz
P.S. Sorry if it got a bit angst ridden at the end there. It’s hard not to be when talking about this stuff.
KazParticipantHi Anita,
I just (quote) replied, but I think it got lost somehow, so I’ll just re-iterate it here in a normal reply.
Thank you for taking the time to read through my story and for disclosing some of your own story too. It’s appreciated.
It’s true that I’ve found an equilibrium where the conflict in my life has been reduced and that is generally working for me. The specific problem that I have is that my current solution is unsustainable due to financial constraints.
Ultimately, I’m going to either need to get on top of my problems with conflict or my problems with motivation, because the first one means I don’t want to work for other people, even though I’ve always been very effective when working for other people in the past, and the second one, which is my preferred thing to solve means that I’m not nearly as effective when working for myself.
I guess I included as much as my story as possible in the hope that something would stick out as to why motivating myself has always been something I’ve struggled with, though of course, it’s possible that I’ve been looking at this wrong, as Matt’s reply did strike a chord with me.
In truth it’s hard to know how to proceed, as I don’t really understand why I behave the way I do with relation to work and why I have trouble achieving things when I’m the sole beneficiary…
Kaz
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 