Letting life happen

The last couple of days, I have let myself get into situations that I swore I wouldn't ever let happen again.  I have fallen into the familiar and odious pattern of letting life happen and then desperately hoping life will bail me out.  And where am I in all this?  Feeling like a little buoy bouncing along on the water's surface, floating along on the tide.

I'm really beginning to see how I have never felt in control of my self and my life.  I've either tried to please people, or reacted against people-pleasing, or done what I thought I was supposed to do, or just let things happen because it seemed easier and I didn't want to say no out of unconscious fear of making the wrong decision. 

Though I often end up doing what is necessary to take care of myself in the long run, these decisions usually come from a place of weakness and last resort.  I yearn for them to come from a place of strength but I am deathly afraid of taking active control of my life, and won't until pushed.  Because what "they" want (real or, more often, imagined) is always given more importance than what I want. 

Because my belief system says that responsibility = blame, judgment and negative repercussions. 

And in a way, I'm finding that "what I want" is a trite, overused phrase.  That maybe I'm too accustomed to using it superficially.  Maybe, as V's comment got me to thinking, I'm looking in the wrong direction.

I've been looking to find what I am most passionate about because, Yes! Then! Then it will come together and I will not dread work like death.  But really, looking more deeply, what I really want right now is not a dream career, but a feeling of competence.  I had been looking for what I want to do or be (thinking that would sort it all out) rather than how I want to do or be. And part of the how is figuring out which environments make me feel less competent and which make me feel more comfortable, then avoiding the former and finding a way into the latter. 

Up until I landed the Job I Loved, I have always put myself in jobs that made me feel like an idiot.  It didn't occur to me that maybe they were a bad fit and that I could try for something different.  I just kept thinking, "Well, other people do it, therefore there must be something wrong with me.  If I could just fix me, then everything would be ok." (Actually, this is partially true, as I do have skewed ideas of competence vs. perfection.) 

There is one bright spot though.

Normally after the kind of day I had yesterday, I would stop on the way home to buy a bottle of red wine--my version of a 5-year-old trying on mommy's high heels.  A cosmetic attempt to appear adult on the outside when I am so not feeling it on the inside.  A perpetuation of letting life happen.

But yesterday?  No wine.  I just didn't want it.  Instead, I felt I wanted to process rather than medicate and avoid.  Could it be that, at 36 and 11 months, I am actually beginning to grow up?

Comments

[V]

It's all a process of trial and error, and each time we find something that doesn't fit you're one step closer to finding the thing that does - bit like men I guess! By finding what we don't want, we find what we do. No right or wrong, just different perspectives on a story....

[V]

PS you might like this http://kimayres.blogspot.com/2008/11/me-vs-world.html and some of his other wonderful ramblings, worth reading. Kim has a gift for reminding us all that everyone doubts sometimes whilst remaining wonderfully human and that it's ok not to know the answer to it all.

[Stacia]

The experiences of the last couple of days put me back in an old mindset and a negative frame of mind. Thanks for the non-judgmental-bright-side-looking perspective!

Thanks for the Kim recommendation too. I started following him a couple months ago - I think his blogroll is how I found you actually - but I haven't dug into the archives at all. Will definitely check this one out.

[Lindsey]

I am not going to "comment" per se. Just want you to know I'm here and I think you are awesome. :-)