I said in a #VEDA video about quitting that I don’t quit very often, because I never start something without thinking of how I’m going to finish it. That is not true and I knew it immediately, but my vlogs are unscripted and I lost my way while making a related point. I start things all the time with no idea of how I’m going to finish them. But I don’t start things without the intent to finish them. So when I’m considering something, I usually make my decision based on whether I care enough to put in the work to figure it out and not whether I actually have a plan or not.
I was thinking about the things I commit to and the things I say no to, and I guess I wanted to believe there was a list of reasons behind every decision, but there’s this thing I realized about myself when I was deciding what to do after college and that’s that I make almost all of my decisions based on feeling. They are good decisions and they can all be justified, and sometimes I imagine someone questioning me on them, so I come up with my list of reasons, but I’m growing more comfortable admitting that I did what I did because it felt right.
It is pretty rare that anyone questions the decisions I make, which is probably a good thing, because I am no good at answering those questions. I get kind of weird and defensive, which I don’t like about myself, but it has never really made any sense to me until I was listening to an episode of The Mental Illness Happy Hour where Cara Santa Maria said that she likes to fail in private. It’s not just that I like to fail in private, but that I like to figure things out by myself. This is a classic introvert thing, which I totally knew, but somehow I had never made the connection.
I guess I have been embarrassed, thinking it was a pride thing. And maybe it actually is to some degree. But it’s not like I’m unwilling to admit my failures. It’s more like I don’t want you staring at me and asking questions while I’m trying to figure out what to do next. I notice that I like to talk about things in the past tense–always upon reflection. In the moment, I want to answer only to myself.
I am still a little bit puzzled by this and I don’t know how much to accept and how much to work on changing. I hate the way I get all glarey-eyed when the people closest to me start asking legitimate questions, but maybe the problem is not the way that I work through things, but my failure to communicate that to other people. I remember a certain angsty teenager who would have been a lot better off if she just could have said, “I need to sit in my room by myself for a while.” Maybe now that I understand myself better, it will be easier to communicate that to other people.
Speaking of not knowing how you will finish something, but only that you know you will finish something, this post was supposed to be something completely different. I was going to talk about Totes The Best, which I gave very little thought to before committing to doing it every day. I just had a feeling, so I went with it. And I’m so glad that I did, because it has become something I didn’t really expect. It’s more of a writing thing than a positivity thing, but I have been reminded that the things that make me happy are rarely uncomplicated and completely good. Here’s to jumping into uncertain things with dedication.
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I haaaaate when people ask me why I do something. I usually start with “B****!” in my head but take a breath and stifle a resolute “Because.”
I stole a couple of lines from this in regards to a recent situation and stored them in my heart, which is kind of sore. It was very… awakening to me. Thank you.
I remember this one trip I took to Charleston with my cousin, two of her friends, and two of their friends. One of my cousin’s friend’s friend, asked me if I was going to teach after I graduated since I majored in English. I said no, and then she asked me what I did want to do. I said I wasn’t sure. Then she said, “So, you just wasted all that money?” And I, more or less, got defensive and snippy, because it’s nobody’s place to suggest that you’ve wasted money on an education, in my opinion. Like you, I just needed that alone time to figure it out and hadn’t had that alone time yet when she’d asked me, and I spent the rest of the trip silently resenting her. I have since had that alone time and since figured out what I want to do, but it still really irritates me that she said that. And when I talked with my cousin about it, she said she didn’t think it was a bad question to ask me, that I was probably just miffed about it because I had doubts about the way my college career had gone. And don’t get me wrong, I do have regrets about my college career, but I chose to major in English because it felt right to me. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I know I couldn’t imagine it, because I tried hard to, and none of the other majors fit me the same way. And now I am dead sure that I want to go back to school, and I can, because I got accepted into a graduate English program for this fall semester but deferred till next year due to finances. So, I get what you’re saying. And I understand that it’s somewhat a matter of pride, but not entirely, because I feel that way, too. Introverts just have a different way of going about things. I can empathize with you so much on that.