From what WordPress is telling me, it’s been 16 months since either (a) I had anything worth writing about, or (b) I had temporarily become non-lazy enough to actually commit to writing something. I imagine the answer is probably (c) a bit of both.
More than one person has told me in the past that I need to write more – that they enjoy my perspective on things. I am appreciative of such compliments, but I am never very good at actually doing anything with them. I thank them in the moment, to be sure, but I long to be the person who is spurred on by such praise to do more and more. Instead, I usually chalk it up to them just being nice and nothing more. I imagine part of it probably has to do with my near-constant imposter syndrome that I carry around with me at all times. Hopefully I can see my way clear of that eventually, or at least find a way to mitigate it. People deserve better from me than that.
Not only that, but I deserve better from me than that. It’s always struck me as odd when I reflect on how I treat myself that I would never, EVER treat anyone else the way I treat myself. The cognitive dissonance should be setting off loud alarms with flashing lights, but somehow it’s just never seemed to alter my actions and reactions:
- Frustrated with the way your job search has gone? I’d never tell anyone that their lack of finding a job is a reflection of how terrible a candidate/person they must be, but it’s not hard to come to that conclusion about myself after 4.5 years of trying and failing. I mean…why else are these churches looking elsewhere?
- Not happy with what you see in the mirror? I’d never kick someone while they’re down in the futile hopes of negging them into changing their life around, but I somehow think doing the same thing to myself is going to eventually make some kind of difference.
- Are those first two struggles making your social life that much more difficult? I certainly would never tell someone else that they should just assume, given that they’re a big enough loser to be jobless for so long and so unattractive, that others don’t want to be around you, regardless of whether or not anyone has ever said that. Besides, what could you possibly have to offer them that is of any interest or benefit?
Folks, this stuff is nothing new if you’ve read past entries either here or on my previous short-lived blog. I’m not posting this for sympathy (PLEASE NO), because this stuff is of my own doing, and I have allowed it to take hold. I’m writing about it now in case someone else out there who might happen by chance to stumble across this might have experienced or is experiencing similar struggles. For them (and for myself), I just want to say two things:
- As you well know, it’s INCREDIBLY easy to lie to yourself about a great many things. I understand that there are a lot of people in this world who struggle because people have told them lies about themselves that they ended up believing. That is tragic, and my heart aches for them, but that is not my story. My story is that I lied to myself. I lied, and then I lied some more, and eventually the lies became internalized. Once that happens, praise and compliments like those I mentioned earlier just seem to fall on deaf ears. You WANT to believe it, but for whatever reason, you just can’t. It’s heartbreaking.
- These lies most likely never go away completely. It’s kind of like an addiction – you can beat it, but it requires a lifetime of vigilance. That’s where I’ve had the most frustration in my own journey. I get to a point where I think I’m making progress, and then the lies resurface. I’m not ready for it – I somehow convinced myself that they’d never come back, I guess – and I fall back down the hill, having to start pushing the boulder up all over again. You have to be ready for them.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got for now. I mostly wanted to write this as a jump-start of sorts for myself to stop wallowing in disappointment over my lack of…well, a life, really, and get active again, both in body and mind. I do plan on trying to write more, as I’ve been encouraged to do, and I hope, piece by piece and step by step, I can start to undo a lot of the damage that I have done to myself over the years through these lies.
Thanks for reading.