*Title taken from "End of the World Delight" by The Graduate
I know this may come as a great shock to many of you, so you may want to sit down while reading the following sentence. I am not without flaws. In fact, I have several of them. I know this puts me on the same level as approximately 7 billion other people. That said, I don’t like having some of these flaws. If you will, please allow me the indulgence of putting some thoughts into writing, and we’ll see if we can take care of some of these issues.
I actually touched on this a little more than a year ago on this very blog (feel free to click the link for a brief refresher). I am by nature a driven person. When I determine that I want something, I let virtually nothing stand in my way until I reach that end. In some cases, that has been a great thing. Without that drive, I would not have lost weight or run two marathons. I would not have done nearly as well in grad school if I did not have the focus that has become a hallmark of my adult years. The problem, however, lies when instantaneous success is not an option.
When things do not go my way, I tend to press. There is a flaw in my line of thinking that to this point I have been unable to fix. I get so focused on my end goal and the fear that it will elude my grasp that I lose sight of how I got that far in the first place (and eventually I lose sight of who I am). I become so worried about losing (whether it is an opportunity, a relationship, or something else) that the Jakob at the end is nowhere close to the same Jakob who started.
Case in point: In 2012, I was fresh off the success of having lost weight and was buoyed by confidence after having completed my first marathon. However, I quickly found that the taste of success left me hungry for more. I knew that I could not go on any longer as a substitute teacher. I had to have a greater sense of fulfillment, so I began to work towards that end. A strange thing happened that year, though. I was so driven to have purpose in my life and “act like an adult” that in many ways I lost sight of myself. I stayed clean-shaven for a good portion of the year because I thought that was how an adult should look. I even briefly abandoned my pop punk styling in favor of more “mature” tastes. In fact, I was looking at the “2012 by my Arbitrary Lists” posts the other day and was astonished how my music tastes were far more different that year than any other year. It was a direct result of my single-mindedness. Yes, 2012 was ultimately a success, but in hindsight, it would have been considerably more enjoyable if I had stayed “Jakob” in the process instead of the Jakob I thought I needed to be.
The issue of desire getting in the way really comes into play in my personal life. I met someone a year ago, and we hit it off right away. Things grew organically because there was no pressure or expectation for it to grow any certain way. I can say we honestly enjoyed the company of one another, as we spent nearly all day everyday (work hours permitting) in contact with one another. Then two funny things happened in quick succession. First, we had our first disagreement. In the grand scheme of things, it was only a minor squabble, but it set me on a different course. It did so because (2) I finally came to the realization that “Oh my goodness. I really really really (yes, three reallys) want us to be together.”
From that moment on, I lost all ability to be natural. I gradually stopped being me and started morphing into this representation of what I either thought she needed or thought that I was supposed to be. Unsurprisingly, this method has not been particularly successful. It is a testament to how well we connected in the beginning that we still have contact. What I think troubles me the most is that I recognize this issue within myself, yet my desire overrides my ability to act naturally to the point that I am constantly tripping over my own feet and probably frustrating both her and myself in the process. For her sake and mine, I need to get better at this. That doesn't mean that I need to lose my interest in her (because that isn't going to happen). I do need to get better at how I approach things as a result of this interest.
Part of this problem can be attributed to my process of valuing. Before I have the ability to truly care about something, I play it particularly cool. I can rock the first impressions like a pro. Actually, once I stop caring about something, I have the ability to return to my initial levels of coolness. You can talk to a number of former interests of mine, and they will probably tell you that they liked me most when they first met me—and after I stopped liking them!
So there’s the issue. I do not want to stop caring about the things I care about. They are my hopes, dreams, and goals for a reason, after all. However, if I approach them with the intensity and tenacity that I have traditionally done, I exponentially increase the likelihood of alienating myself from others, burning myself out, and losing sight of who I am in the process. I want to get better at this. I need to get better at this. I just have to find a way…
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