when you’re trying to write and your last two functioning brain cells start yelling at each other
I occasionally have this problem.
Tag: reminder
One of the things that really gets to me about Tumblr fandom’s view of relationships is the idea (sometimes stated outright, often implied) that there’s some kind of clear dividing line between healthy and not-healthy, between abusive and not-abusive, that people never slide back and forth between those things or slip over the line, and that’s just … not how human relationships work. And it’s one thing when you’re holding fictional characters to an absurdly high standard, but it makes me worry that a lot of people are internalizing the idea that human relationships aren’t messy and complicated and sometimes painful, and that’s really going to make life hard for you. You’ll either end up beating yourself up way too much for doing utterly normal things, or beating up on other people for doing utterly normal things, and you’ll let a lot of things that could have been good slip through your fingers because they aren’t perfect.
Look, I’m not saying anybody should stay in a relationship that’s toxic for them, and ideally we should all be in happy supportive relationships with people who make us happy all the time, but human emotions are a mess.
You WILL do terrible, awful things. You’ll be selfish. You’ll hurt people. Sometimes they’ll forgive you and sometimes they won’t. Every long-term relationship you have will end up being littered with the memories of times you were both awful to each other.
You’ll fall in love with people who don’t love you, and be loved by people you don’t love. Sometimes you might try to make a relationship (or a friendship) work anyway. Sometimes it’ll even work out.
You’ll end up loving some people you never in a million years thought you’d feel that way about, because you got a terrible first impression and misjudged them. You’ll look back and think, How could I not have known how awesome they were? But you didn’t, then. And you’ll walk away from other people who could have been just as beloved and never know it.
A lot of times you won’t be able to tell how other people feel about you at all, and you’ll just have to keep going anyway.
You’ll break up friendships by doing stupid, selfish things.
You’ll put your trust in the wrong people, and the wrong places, and have it broken.
You’ll do some things thinking you’re the good guy at the time, and realize in retrospect that you weren’t.
You’ll change your mind about a lot of stuff. You’ll realize that some of the things you used to believe were kind of messed up. Sometimes you’ll change your mind because of people around you and then realize that you were right all along. Sometimes you’ll realize that nobody’s right or wrong, but have to make a decision anyway.
You’ll interfere where you shouldn’t and get your ass handed to you. You’ll fail to interfere where you should have, and feel guilty for the rest of your life.
(Not everyone will do all of these things. But it’s humanly impossible not to do at least some of them.)
And none of that makes you an awful person or undeserving of love or bad to be around?! It’s just how people are. It’s how EVERYONE is, even the ones who seem like they have it together. Life is messy and complicated and confusing, and it hurts. People can do awful things and be forgiven. In fact, if that weren’t true, none of us would have any relationships at all.
I don’t know, I’m just thinking about this today, because expecting perfection of fictional characters is one thing (they’re fictional, it doesn’t hurt them) but it’s going to mess you up in all kinds of ways if you think that’s actually how real life works.
load-bearing
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is. Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.
This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.
don’t forget spoons. the two can coexist.
Since once in a blue moon I actually discover a decent rule for adulting, and since I know I have followers a few years younger than me who are just entering the workforce, I want to tell you about a very important phrase.
“I won’t be available.”
Imagine you’re at work and your boss asks you to come in on Saturday. Saturday is usually your day off–coming in Saturdays is not an obligation to keep your job. Maybe you were going to watch a movie with a friend, or maybe you were just going to lie in bed and eat ice cream for eight hours, but either way you really, really don’t want to give up your day off.
If you consider yourself a millennial you’ve probably been raised to believe you need to justify not being constantly at work. And if you’re a gen-Z kid you’re likely getting the same toxic messages that we did. So in a situation like that, you might be inclined to do one of three things:
- Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Cave when they pressure you to come in anyway, since you’re not doing anything important.
- Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Over-apologize and worry that you looked bad/unprofessional.
- Lie and say you’ve got a doctor’s appointment or some other activity that feels like an adequate justification for not working.
The fact is, it doesn’t matter to your boss whether you’re having open heart surgery or watching anime in your underwear on Saturday. The only thing that affects them is the fact that you won’t be at work. So telling them why you won’t be at work only gives them reason to try and pressure you to come in anyway.
If you say “I won’t be available,” giving no further information, you’d be surprised how often that’s enough. Be polite and sympathetic in your tone, maybe even say “sorry, but I won’t be available.” But don’t make an excuse. If your boss is a professional individual, they’ll accept that as a ‘no’ and try to find someone else.
But bosses aren’t always professional. Sometimes they’re whiny little tyrants. So, what if they pressure you further? The answer is–politely and sympathetically give them no further information.
“Are you sure you’re not available?” “Sorry, but yes.”
“Why won’t you be available?” “I have a prior commitment.” (Which you do, even if it’s only to yourself.)
“What’s your prior commitment?” “Sorry, but that’s kind of personal.”
“Can you reschedule it?” “I’m afraid not. Maybe someone else can come in?”
If you don’t give them anything to work with, they can’t pressure you into going beyond your obligations as an employee. And when they realize that, they’ll also realize they have to find someone else to come in and move on.
IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ!!
Just like with many other parts of life, learn to say ‘no’ to people. You are important. Don’t kill yourself for another person, esp. if they are your boss.
I think it’s important to praise and uplift writers who don’t write pretty. Prose that sticks close to the ground is valuable, wonderful, and yes, still takes a lot of work to compose. Think of stories like houses. Ornately-decorated Victorian homes are lovely, so are palaces with sprawling gardens. But I love a small, snug and plainly-built story, where I can make myself at home for a while.
If you write honestly, you can tell a beautiful story. Even if the writing itself is not. It may not make for eye-catching excerpts and quotes, but plain writing isn’t necessarily boring or bad. Sometimes the best way to tell a story is to tell it simply, and I think that’s important to remember.
I’m going to give you the best piece of Adult Life Is Hard advice I’ve ever learned:
Talk to people when things go to shit.
I don’t just mean get it off your chest, although that’s good. I mean: Something’s wrong with your paycheck/you lost your job/you had unexpected emergency car repairs and now you’re broke so your credit card payment is late. Like, not just 15 days late. We’re talking, shit got crazy and now you’re 90 days late with compounded interest and late fees and the Minimum Payment Due is, like, $390, and you’ve got about $3.90 in your bank account. Call the credit card company.
I know it’s scary. I know you feel like you’re going to get in trouble, like you’re gong to get yelled at or scolded for not having your life together. But the credit card company isn’t your parents; they’re just interested in getting money from you. And you can’t squeeze blood from a stone or money from someone who doesn’t have any. So what you do is you call them. You explain you’re experiencing temporary financial hardships, and you’re currently unable to bring your account up to date, but you don’t want to just let it get worse. Can you maybe talk to someone about a payment plan so you can work something out? Nine times out of ten you’ll be able to negotiate something so that at least it’s not just taking a constant, giant shit on your credit score.
– Can’t pay your power bill? Call the power company.
– Can’t pay your full rent? Talk to your landlord.
– Had to go to the hospital without insurance and have giant medical bills looming in your place? Call the hospital and ask if they have someone who helps people with financial hardships. Many do.
– Got super sick and missed half a semester of class because flu/pneumonia/auto-immune problems/depressive episode? Talk to your professor. If that doesn’t help, talk to your advisor.
You may not be able to fix everything, but you’ll likely be able to make improvements. At the very least, it’s possible that they have a list of people you can contact to help you with things. (Also, don’t be afraid to google things like, “I can’t pay my power bill [state you live in]” because you’d be surprised at what turns up on Google!) But the thing is, people in these positions gain nothing if you fail. There’s no emotional satisfaction for them if your attempts at having your life together completely bite the dust. In fact, they stand to benefit if things work out for you! And chances are, they’ll be completely happy to take $20 a month from you over getting $0 a month from you, your account will be considered current because you’ve talked to them and made an agreement, you won’t get reported to a collections agency, and your credit score won’t completely tank.
Here’s some helpful tips to keep in mind:
1. Be polite. Don’t demand things; request them. Let me tell you about how customer service people hold your life in their hands and how many extra miles they’ll go for someone who is nice to them.
2. Stick to the facts, and keep them minimal unless asked for them. Chances are they’re not really interested in the details. “We had several family emergencies in a row, and now I’m having trouble making the payments” is better than “Well, two months ago my husband wrecked his bike, and then he had a reaction to the muscle relaxer they gave him, and then our dog swallowed a shoestring and we had to take him to the emergency clinic, and just last week MY car broke down, and now my account’s in the negatives and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it back out.” The person you’re talking to is aware shit happens to everyone; they don’t need the details to prove you’re somehow “worthy” of being helped. They may ask you for details at a certain point if they have to fill out any kind of request form, but let them do that.
3. Ask questions. “Is there anything we can do about X?” “Would it be possible to move my payment date to Y day instead so it’s not coming out of the same paycheck as my rent?” The answer may be “no.” That’s not a failure on your part. But a good customer service person may have an alternate solution.
Anyway! I hope that helps! Don’t just assume the answer is “no” before you’ve even begun. There is more help out there than you ever imagined.
Why don’t I feel like I’m a good person?
because you’ve got the inside view.
see, you see all your nasty thoughts as they pass by. you feel all those mean impulses; you catch every terrible thing you think about a friend, you have to watch yourself procrastinate on important stuff and be lazy when you feel like you should be working. you get front-row seats to all the awfulness that comes with being a person. and you only get that view of yourself, not of anyone else. so naturally, since you can’t see all the internal flaws in everyone else, it seems like they don’t have them–but you do.
the secret is that everyone has those flaws.
if being a good person is something you strive for–if you keep those nasty thoughts inside your head instead of directing them at other people, if you support your friends instead of pushing them down, if you try your best at what you do–then i promise you, you’re a good person. and even if you fail at that stuff sometimes, all it takes to be a good person is to keep trying.
there’s nothing any more bad about you than there is about loads of other people.
ask your friends if you’re a good person–when it comes to things like this, they probably see you more clearly than you do yourself. trust them. if they say ‘yes, of course’ then you’ll know you don’t have to worry. if they say no, you can ask them why, and then strive to change those things about yourself.
just remember that if it seems like everyone else is a better person than you, it’s only because you can’t see what’s happening inside them. trust me–everyone struggles to do the right thing sometimes. even steve.
you’re a good person. even if you don’t feel like it.
When I was younger, I wish someone had told me straight-up that not all adults experience “a calling”. That many of them never find particular purpose in a career. That sometimes, their job is just what pays the bills and they have to seek satisfaction and fulfillment elsewhere.
Because as an adult, this pervasive notion that there exists a perfect path for everyone, that people should love what they do, and that work is meant to function as a vehicle for fulfilling a person’s grand life destiny is not only inaccurate for many of us, it can be toxic.
The ideal is so ingrained that I have to remind myself constantly I’m not a failure because I don’t adore my job, and because I’m not rocking the world with my work. That is okay.
Sometimes, work is just work. There isn’t always a perfect career path, magically waiting to be discovered. There might not be this THING you were born to do. Sometimes, you discover that what you really want to be when you grow up is “paid”.
Thank God, someone more eloquent than me put it into words.
bullshit central 