"I'm two paragraphs into a follow up and my mind is all over the place". I just sent that message to someone about this. It's crazy how just typing up your thoughts can make you feel so vulnerable. The concept of OVR OUT that I think brings all of our differences together is the concept of making it over, through, out of what gets in your way of achieving your mission. Or as any possible other Coelho readers might relate to and my favorite phrasing, "your personal legend". From my last word vomit you might conclude that I am still in the "through" part of that… with uncertainty of the "out" part. Excuse my obnoxious usage of quotation marks I don't even know if they're appropriate for the context but when I visualize myself reading this aloud I am hand signaling air quotes so, it is what it is.
In word vomit #1 I said that the focus of that piece was my mindset after closing certain challenging chapters of my life. After reading back on it, I'm not really sure I did that. Without seeming so doom and gloom, or you know what fuck it bring on the doom and gloom, that mindset is one of failure. Failure in making something of myself, failure in my relationships with the people around me, and failure in the way I treat myself. One coping mechanism that I've caught myself using in my past is to twist my failures like I did it on purpose or something. Because I hated showing weakness. I've been reading on those little motivational quotes that in order to get past something you have to face the trauma head on. So in my own way I've been doing that. It is probably an awkward communication exchange for anyone who doesn't know me though.
You ever find yourself communicating with someone and its taking everything in your powers of self control to not start mocking them in a terminator voice about how they've been sent from the future to eradicate every bit of fun from the conversation? Maybe throw a few robot dance moves in there to lift the tension. For me personally I think it was just this fundamental lack of focus, an overall indifference in the outcome of anything I was doing. Unless it was a quick laugh at something immature or perverted online I couldn't even sit still long enough to string together a shoddy project. I think this constant need for stimulation combined with the inner pull to always be a sarcastic asshole has greatly handicapped my professional success. I started to think there was something wrong with me. Like why the fuck can't I be a productive functioning member of society. Ive never found myself to be great at anything. In fact quite mediocre at everything, never great at something. Any small accomplishments Ive even managed have been fueled on convincing myself I am an absolute piece of shit. I guess my mind works in extremes.
So I am left with this. What's my thing? What can I find to at least be above mediocre at? Every great Ted talk about someone's strange journey always seems to be a story about pulling a win out of a failure. How many times do I get to fuck up until I find my success story. Side note at first I wrote "How many times do I get to fuck up until I find my happy ending" but I'm such an asshole I can't even read the words happy ending out loud without chuckling.
Now while I KNOW many people feel these ways about themselves from time to time, I think suppression has become a norm. In what ways (aside from memes) do we work together to crawl out of this failure hole? Should I go to some sort of young professionals meet up and fake it till I make it? Do I go back to a desk, a routine? Maybe I should just get a new statement tattoo! That'll work. I've always been a big believer in gut feelings, like when something is right you'll just know it. But that's what got me here.
What I've settled on is the fundamental, foundational concept of "do what feels good". And I don't mean my usual drink two bottles of wine because it feels good. I mean do hard things that give you a good feeling (ba dum tssss). If you ever take a yoga class, the instructor will walk you through a movement that might be really difficult, but they will remind you that the end goal is making the body feel good. If it is continuously unpleasant, you're probably not doing it right. We should all learn to live our lives this way. Me sitting down writing something that forces me to read out loud that I feel like a failure might not be the easiest thing to do in the moment, but in the end it makes me feel a sense of "good". For many people, exercise is grueling at the time, but in the end they can say they did something they're proud of. I've never started a small business, but I imagine the process feels similar. If I continue to do things that, in the simplest terms make me feel good, will I make it through this? I promise stick with me and eventually I'll write about something funny and clever.
-Monica
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