On Giving 20%

Earlier today, a former student of mine apologized for not giving 110% in my class. Every time I hear this expression, I cringe. It's become a mantra in our culture for giving one's all, and we're all expected to give 110% to every task we take on. I can't actually recall any specific person ever telling me that I needed to give 110%, but somewhere along the line, this belief was instilled in me so deeply that I didn't need anyone to tell me because I held myself to this impossible standard. 

Who sold us all on this toxic belief?

At this point, it doesn't really matter who's to blame. What matters is that we free ourselves from incredibly damaging cultural values. Hard work is a positive value. Being productive and producing quality are positive values. Giving our all to every task is not.

First of all, giving 110% is quite literally impossible. To give 100% is to give everything you have. No one can give more than they have. If you have 24 hours in a day, you can't give 26.4 hours in a day. If you acknowledge that you can only give 100%, you can certainly choose to devote that 100% as you deem most appropriate, but it is equally impossible to give 100% to any one task. In order to not pass out or fall down dead, you must devote a certain percentage of your time and energy to sleeping and eating. If you sleep the recommended 8 hours per night, you are giving approximately 33% to essential recovery time for your mind and body. With the remaining 2/3 of our time, most of don't want to devote every minute to one single task. There are people we want to spend time with, hobbies that we want to devote time too, and let's not forget about the jobs we have to go to. If I give my job 66%, I leave no time or energy for the people, places, and activities that bring joy into my life.

I propose giving a maximum of 20% to any one area of life. When I'm at work, I can give 20% and make the most of that 20% by working hard and producing quality work. The rest of my 100%, though, needs to be devoted to self-care, investing in relationships with people who matter to me, and participating in activities that bring peace and joy into my life.

The world can take its 110% somewhere else. I value myself too much to give my all.

What Game of Thrones Is Teaching Me about the Kind of Woman I Want to Be

I’ve been thinking about femininity and Game of Thrones. Lol. 

I think in trying not to be a Gilly, many women accidentally turn into a Cersei or Yara. Gilly is weak and pathetic. She is (or was at least) a very real but still quite stereotypical victim in need of saving and being taken care of. Yara is badass but just grossly masculine and crude (and I don’t even mean her language), and while Brienne and Arya are more masculine too, they aren’t trying to be masculine; they’re just being who they are: badass warriors. I wouldn’t want to be them, but they are women worthy of respect, especially Brienne. I still need to see where Arya’s character ends up. I think she is young enough that her character is still somewhat malleable. Cersei and Ellaria are so hell bent on not being controlled by men or anyone for that matter that they just turn into evil, controlling, power hungry cunts. 

I want to be a Daenerys. She is strong, wise, and powerful but also soft and beautiful and feminine. Her strength comes from her wisdom, and much of her wisdom comes from surrounding herself with wise people who aren’t afraid to challenge her and being able to listen to their council and weigh their advice logically. She doesn’t always follow their suggestions, and sometimes she makes the wrong decision (like telling the Lannister army to bend the knee or die and calling that a choice), but she always tries to do what her gut tells her is the right and just thing to do. She slaughters the enemy and does right by good people, and she is capable of giving people opportunities for change. She is ruthless when necessary but forgiving when warranted. 

Weakness: Let Me Kill That for You

I've been thinking about weakness. It is difficult for me to accept weakness in others, especially the people closest to me, most especially anyone I depend on or feel I should be able to depend on. In a recent conversation with my friend and tattoo artist about the challenge of loving strong women, I admitted my attitude about weakness in a romantic partner: "Hey, I see a little weakness there. Let me kill that for you." To me, this has always seemed completely logical. Why would anyone want to be weak? Of course, they would be grateful for my (unrequested) "help" in irradiating any weaknesses they might have.

Wrong.

Today, my ex and I were discussing the time he got a splinter, and I called him a pussy. I claim I was joking. He claims my words were a lot more sinister than that. In hindsight, I don't think I was joking at all. I think I was spewing my resenting and hiding it in sarcasm because I was incapable of identifying and communicating my feelings with others.

I resented anything I saw in him resembling weakness because I depended on him. I had come to view him as strong and reliable and someone I could depend on. If he had weakness, how could I depend on him? Other people in my life who were supposed to protect me failed because they were weak. I had even failed myself at times because of my own weaknesses. Because of these experiences, I had come to view weakness as intolerable and something to be eradicated at any cost.

But the truth is that I am human and flawed. I am incredibly strong, but not all the time. I have weaknesses and flaws and failings. And that is okay. And if it is okay for me to be weak sometimes; then, it must also be okay for others to be weak sometimes as well. Even the people I depend on.

I reject weakness out of fear--fear that I might not survive whatever storms such weaknesses leave me vulnerable to, but I can and will survive them. And even if I don't, I wasn't put on this Earth to live forever anyway. One day, I will die, precisely because I am a weak human. I was not born to be invincible and neither was anyone else.

What I need to kill are not my weaknesses, but my fear of them. I will learn to accept and love my weaknesses and the weaknesses of others.

Searching for My Truth

I was reading about intuition tonight. Part of the reading cautioned against relying on others' opinions and beliefs as guides to personal truths. I think this has been the greatest cause of my indecisiveness about relationships over the last year and a half. I know what is true for me. It hasn't changed since July 4, 2012. But other people's opinions and beliefs sometimes distract me from that truth. I second guess myself: "What of they're right?" Their wisdom is logical and ubiquitous, but it's still their wisdom. What is true for others is not necessarily true for me. My second guessing and constant questioning of what I want and what I should do is the result of not listening for the answer the Universe has for me. Instead, I've been trying to force solutions that don't fit my needs. I think I've been doing all of this out of fear. I don't like where I am right now in my romantic life, and I fear that things won't turn out the way I want them to. Ultimately, though, I have to accept that I can't control the outcome. All I can do is listen to my heart and do what I believe is right for me. The question all this time has simply been whether I trust myself enough to do that. I see now that the answer has been no. Moving forward, I want to learn to listen and to trust myself enough to feel confident and secure in my choices in this area of my life. There is no room (nor reason) for doubt on Wonder Woman's path. There is only the goal and the way to goal. If I focus on my goal, the results will unfold the way they are meant to.

(Un)Comfortably Numb

Yesterday after my a text conversation with my ex, I started to feel the numbness of my love avoidance take its familiar place around my heart. Between work stress, financial stress, car troubles, furnace troubles, and a new relationship, hearing from the man I believe to be my soul mate was just too much. I shut down. The brick walls went up. And I don't know how to take them back down. Truth be told, I am rather enjoying not feeling right now. Disconnecting my emotions from people and events is helping me regain some much needed sanity in the midst of all this chaos. 

So what's the problem?

Erecting my walls usually destroys anyone standing near me. I don't do it on purpose. It happens independent of my conscious will. I become overwhelmed, and it just happens. To save me. To keep me from losing myself. Others don't understand. The just see the wall and don't understand why I am so suddenly unreachable. 

If I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm trying to hold on to him just as hard as I'm trying to let him go. Obviously, that isn't working out very well. I am terrified that whatever choice I make will be the wrong choice. What if I let go only to find out that I could have had everything I ever wanted if only I'd held out just a little longer? What if I hold on and end up spending the rest of my life waiting for someone who will never choose me? 

I've always wanted a love that burned like the sun, a love that if destroyed would take down the whole world with it. But I don't think I have the energy for that kind of love again. The other part of me just wants something calm and dependable. But then I get bored. Maybe I just wasn't made for relationships after all. 

Love Me, Love Me, Love Me

I've never thought I had a problem loving myself because I have pretty high self esteem. It turns out those two things are not the same and having one doesn't mean you have the other. I take a lot of pride in my accomplishments, and I rarely doubt my ability to achieve any goal I set for myself, but lately I am realizing that I haven't been loving myself.

About a year ago, I came to realize that I did not know how to meet my own emotional needs. I expected others to fill that role and provide me with love, support, encouragement, and positivity when I lacked it. If I were sad, I looked to others to make me happy. If I were lonely, I expected the people who said they cared about me to be there to alleviate my loneliness. If I were angry, I expected the person whose behavior had triggered my anger to change themselves to appease me. I have learned that I alone am responsible for fulfilling my emotional needs and that, in fact, others really can't do this for me.

Before my ex walked out on me a year ago last April, he had asked me to take the Love Languages quiz with him, which I did. I learned that my primary love language is acts of service. Last month, the day before I was leaving on vacation, I had an epiphany. I had to mow the lawn that morning. I hate mowing the lawn, but I don't have anyone else to do it and can't really afford to pay someone right now. On my way to meet a friend, I realized that even though my primary love language is acts of service, I actively refuse to let anyone help me. Ever. Had someone offered to mow my lawn for me, I would have refused insistently for two reasons. 1) I believe that asking for help is weakness (even if the help is proffered, and 2) I don't want to ow anyone anything. (I don't yet know how this latter belief was developed.) Besides if someone really loved me, they'd insist just as hard to do it and even sneak and mow my yard behind my back if they had to. Seriously, Tif? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

There have been all kinds of people in my life trying to love me the way I want and need, and I stand in their way and block them from doing it. "Nah, thanks but no thanks. I can do it myself." This was the moment I realized that I don't love myself. Not because I don't want to  or because I think I don't deserve it. I am an awesome person, and I totally deserve love. It's because I never knew how, and if I don't know how to love me, how the fuck is anyone else supposed to know how to do it? It's my job to tell people how I want to be loved, and if I can't do that, I can't get pissed when they don't do it right. And I certainly can't throw a pity party for myself (NOBODY LOVES ME!) when intuitive, discerning people try to love me the way I want and need, and I block them from doing it. And I have to stop standing in their way when they try to offer me the love I want.

Because I never received love the way I needed as a child, I actively put up barriers in my adult life, expecting that someone who REALLY loved me will meet my needs anyway despite my resistant, that they'll "inflict some care" on me as I heard someone say once. But forced love isn't love.

So now I am working on figuring out how to love me, so that I can love myself fully the way I deserve to be loved, and so that when I find my someone to spend the rest of my life with, whether my ex and I eventually work things out or I meet an amazing new someone, I will be able to communicate to them the things that make me feel loved, and so they can do the same with me.

So far, I am making good progress. :) <3

Love Me, Love Me, Love Me

I've never thought I had a problem loving myself because I have pretty high self esteem. It turns out those two things are not the same and having one doesn't mean you have the other. I take a lot of pride in my accomplishments, and I rarely doubt my ability to achieve any goal I set for myself, but lately I am realizing that I haven't been loving myself.

About a year ago, I came to realize that I did not know how to meet my own emotional needs. I expected others to fill that role and provide me with love, support, encouragement, and positivity when I lacked it. If I were sad, I looked to others to make me happy. If I were lonely, I expected the people who said they cared about me to be there to alleviate my loneliness. If I were angry, I expected the person whose behavior had triggered my anger to change themselves to appease me. I have learned that I alone am responsible for fulfilling my emotional needs and that, in fact, others really can't do this for me.

Before my ex walked out on me a year ago last April, he had asked me to take the Love Languages quiz with him, which I did. I learned that my primary love language is acts of service. Last month, the day before I was leaving on vacation, I had an epiphany. I had to mow the lawn that morning. I hate mowing the lawn, but I don't have anyone else to do it and can't really afford to pay someone right now. On my way to meet a friend, I realized that even though my primary love language is acts of service, I actively refuse to let anyone help me. Ever. Had someone offered to mow my lawn for me, I would have refused insistently for two reasons. 1) I believe that asking for help is weakness (even if the help is proffered, and 2) I don't want to owe anyone anything. (I don't yet know how this latter belief was developed.) Besides if someone really loved me, they'd insist just as hard to do it and even sneak and mow my yard behind my back if they had to. Seriously, Tif? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

There have been all kinds of people in my life trying to love me the way I want and need, and I stand in their way and block them from doing it. "Nah, thanks but no thanks. I can do it myself." This was the moment I realized that I don't love myself. Not because I don't want to  or because I think I don't deserve it. I am an awesome person, and I totally deserve love. It's because I never knew how, and if I don't know how to love me, how the fuck is anyone else supposed to know how to do it? It's my job to tell people how I want to be loved, and if I can't do that, I can't get pissed when they don't do it right. And I certainly can't throw a pity party for myself (NOBODY LOVES ME!) when intuitive, discerning people try to love me the way I want and need, and I block them from doing it. I have to stop standing in their way when they try to offer me the love I want.

Because I never received love the way I needed as a child, I actively put up barriers in my adult life, expecting that someone who REALLY loved me will meet my needs anyway despite my resistance, that they'll "inflict some care" on me as I heard someone say once. But forced love isn't love.

So now I am working on figuring out how to love me, so that I can love myself fully the way I deserve to be loved, and so that when I find my someone to spend the rest of my life with, whether my ex and I eventually work things out or I meet an amazing new someone, I will be able to communicate to him the things that make me feel loved, and so he can do the same with me.

So far, I am making good progress. :) <3