Baby steps

I didn't bother with a grand pronouncement of resolutions for 2016, for several reasons. One, I've never bothered with resolutions at all in the past, viewing them as a condemnation of what has been, up to now, a pretty damned fine life. Two, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans (or at least, I've always thought that way).  Three, even when I set out with the best of intentions, I lack staying power: stating my intentions is pointless when I don't follow through on them.

These three reasons are all linked.

Only one person has openly questioned me about my life goals, insofar as I have any, and she made me feel absolutely terrible. She didn't mean to...I really should phrase that "I chose to feel" rather than "she made me feel". But knowing the world knows your inadequacies and sees right through your self-rationalizations is...disconcerting. It shouldn't be: hell, I'm 44 in a couple of weeks and in a job meant for teenagers, that pays teenage wages. It's not like people don't notice that; likewise, they can't fail to notice I got a certificate in French from Conestoga College last year--the picture of the certificate itself was my most-liked photo on Facebook for 2015--and that I haven't exactly done anything with it. But hey, you tell people that you aren't your job and you really like what you're doing anyway -- which is true, mostly -- and that's the end of it.

Except in your head, where it festers.  You spent $2000 and a fair bit of skullsweat, got some of the highest marks in your class every class, and for what? If all you were going to do was moulder away in some grocery store freezer?

I don't have to look very hard to determine the roots of my mindset: it comes from childhood. I started a diary in 1988 (I was 16 that year) and one of the first things I complained about back then was feeling "like I was strapped to the nosecone of a guided missile whose guidance systems were seriously out of whack". I went to four schools from kindergarten to grade eight, one of them twice, and then three high schools. I won't kid myself and say I was ever comfortable at school, at least until the second high school, but I never really had the chance to get comfortable. My life would get uprooted after a year or at most two, and I rarely knew why. What did I want to do when I grew up? How the hell should I know? I never knew what the next year would bring, why would I bother making plans that far out?

I've carried that attitude with me throughout my adult life thus far. Once I stopped dwelling on the past, it has served me well in many respects. It has allowed me to accept (again, mostly) each moment as it comes, and find the little joys that keep me sustained and centered (with time out for a major depressive episode).

Yeah, that's not really all that convincing, is it?

There are four reasons people keep doing the same thing over and over. Habits, addictions, rituals and status quo bias. I have a habit of showering in the dark and shaving in the shower...that explains the little tufts of facial hair in odd places. I have a bona fide Internet addiction. I have a ritual when I go to sleep: I start out on my right side, flip to my left side after a bit, then flip back to my right side and spread out and zzzzzz.

Status quo bias is an insidious force. It's the irrational preference for what is over what could be...even when "what could be" is demonstrably better.

Many people are subject to it without admitting it. Me, I'll fully admit its power over me. If I don't risk anything, I won't lose anything. I won't gain anything, either, but that's irrelevant. Be content with what you have; don't get greedy.

It used to be much worse. Within this blog's lifetime, I used to read the same books over and over and over again. I knew what I was getting, and that what I was getting was good.  I don't do that very much anymore. But I do feel very strongly about risk and rejection and it's easier to just reject myself in advance than let other people do it for me.

There are many excuses for why I'm still in retail, despite shouting from the rooftops a year ago that I'd never be in retail again. I let my job search experience convince me retail was all I was good for (two interviews for office jobs out of dozens of resumes sent out, and I evidently bombed both). That French certification isn't enough to brand me fluent (that's not me talking, that's a pure-d fact) and further education is out of my financial reach right now. I need the benefits I have right now for Eva's sake. Looking for a job is a full time job and I don't have the energy for it when I already have one. I have ZERO experience in other fields and so much to learn before I can be considered employable (hell, I've barely even OPENED Excel). My God, the effort--it's daunting to even think about. It's easier to do what I'm doing. Much easier.  

Sometimes I think people think me less of a person, not because I work retail (well, okay, that too) but because I could, presumably, be doing so much more with my life. I would like to be in a position to make a real difference. You don't get that in retail; you don't get that in run-of-the-mill office jobs either.  I don't know what you get that in, much less how to get from where I am to wherever that is. THAT makes ME think I'm less of a person.

If this sounds like I need a change in medication: no. I don't. Just routine self-doubt that hits me every January like clockwork. It occurs to me that this is because I have been thinking wrong all these years.

People don't make resolutions because they hate their lives. Not generally, anyway. It's entirely possible to love your life while still thinking it can be better. It's also possible, and probably well advised, to actually take "life is what you make it" seriously and stop thinking that life is what happens when you make other plans...if they were real plans, you'd make THEM happen instead, wouldn't you?

As to intention. I think I poison my chances of success at anything before I even start. I've made it into a joke: I think positively! Instead of saying "I won't succeed, I say, "I WILL fail!" I'm going to make a serious effort this year at learning how not to do that.

Baby steps.