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2011 Reflections
Dec. 31st, 2011 06:06 pmIn the spirit of my 2010 post, here's what I've learned in 2011.
Look for the unexpected. Don't dwell on it, but remain open. As C.M.Forester said in his Horatio Hornblower book Flying Colors, "A lucky man is someone who knows how much to leave up to chance."
Not everything someone says is true. Someone who lives a life of self-delusion is someone who is unreliable because they don't know what they really feel or where they really stand on anything.
If your doctor says take your meds, take them. If this causes problems then take it up with the doctor. Believe it or not, they know better than you do.
Love is not enough. Never is. Never will be. It is often a great excuse, however, and that leads to a lot of trouble and often a lot of heartbreak.
As the saying goes, "Bro's before Ho's, Sistas before Mistas." Friends are more important than just about anything when it's a matter of survival.
Never say, "It can't get any worse." It can, and the mere fact that you have the ability to say that proves it.
We are born alone. We die alone. Intimacy is illusory. No one can truly know you, and no matter what they say they can't be there for you all the time and take care of themselves too.
Good intentions are worth what they cost. They accomplish nothing physical, and all the good intentions in the world won't pay the rent or put food on the table without some sort of action.
A person who can be alone but not lonely and can find contentment in that aloneness can be the happiest person in the world. But our society is not set up for single people.
A person who is mentally ill will fabricate all kinds of scenarios that make no sense to a rational person to justify their actions. This is why having outside people for a reality check is the safest bet.
Some people are not suited to a romantic life. They make the wrong choices of who they get involved with, and then their best efforts can't do anything to save the situation because they're with someone who is fundamentally incompatible. I'm one of those persons.
When you start to give up things you hold dear for someone else's happiness they are rarely grateful. They instead try to take more and to start treating you with disrespect.
Selfish people rarely become unselfish. It is far easier for unselfish people to become selfish after interacting with a stream of selfish people.
It is possible to love someone and despise the same person at the same time. It's a weird feeling.
Two years without your principal creative outlet is very frustrating. In such cases it is wise to move to a secondary creative outlet.
Creativity is a muscle. The ability to create isn't a function of a natural creativity, it's a function of being creative. When a person starts creating creating more becomes fairly easy as the mind is tuned to thinking of new things.
Most people who think they're self aware aren't actually so. The first step in being self aware is to develop brutal honesty with yourself. If a person isn't honest with their own issues then it is pretty much a lost cause for them to be able to accept honesty from others. They can still be honest with others, but they won't let it work both ways. There's a simple test for this -- if you say "How could you say that about me?" then you're not self aware to the level that you're being honest with your self, while if you say or think, "Yeah, I know, and I don't need someone else telling me that," then you're on the right track.
Magical thinking is pernicious and far more common than most people think. To evaluate if you're doing this look at the steps between a goal and where you are now. If every one of those individual steps can be resolved either by resources you have now or things you develop in earlier steps you're probably alright, while any that require outside aid like angel investors, winning the lottery, or finding that perfect job in London are hallmarks of magical thinking, and unless you're very lucky you lack the wherewithall to acquire the goal.
Constant reminders of someone who burned you do not allow you to heal from their betrayal. And some people either don't care about what they left behind or do it so they can leave their mark. Either one is rude and may be construed as abuseive.
When someone says, "You're being selfish," they're talking about themselves. This statement most often means, "You're not doing what I want you to" or "if you do that I don't get what I want."
When a person says "I would never..." chances are good they will do exactly that. When a person says, "I did (x) because I love you," it is almost never true and there is another reason why they did what they did.
Everything has a season to it, even things that seem long term. This includes organizations, relationships, and even things like Live Journal.
Ethical behavior is rare, and even more so when one's heart is involved. There is no pagan board of ethics, and that is to the benefit of many people, because a log of folks would find themselves called on the carpet and censured if there was for the way they treat others and how they handle members in their group.
I think this is enough for now. I'm wiser, sadder, and more guarded than I was this time last year, but I'm more resolved too, and none of this is anyone's fault, it's just a culmination of a long thread of things. I get it now. And I will act accordingly from now on.
One more thing -- LJ is starting to get scant. I can't guarantee that this journal will survive 2012.
Look for the unexpected. Don't dwell on it, but remain open. As C.M.Forester said in his Horatio Hornblower book Flying Colors, "A lucky man is someone who knows how much to leave up to chance."
Not everything someone says is true. Someone who lives a life of self-delusion is someone who is unreliable because they don't know what they really feel or where they really stand on anything.
If your doctor says take your meds, take them. If this causes problems then take it up with the doctor. Believe it or not, they know better than you do.
Love is not enough. Never is. Never will be. It is often a great excuse, however, and that leads to a lot of trouble and often a lot of heartbreak.
As the saying goes, "Bro's before Ho's, Sistas before Mistas." Friends are more important than just about anything when it's a matter of survival.
Never say, "It can't get any worse." It can, and the mere fact that you have the ability to say that proves it.
We are born alone. We die alone. Intimacy is illusory. No one can truly know you, and no matter what they say they can't be there for you all the time and take care of themselves too.
Good intentions are worth what they cost. They accomplish nothing physical, and all the good intentions in the world won't pay the rent or put food on the table without some sort of action.
A person who can be alone but not lonely and can find contentment in that aloneness can be the happiest person in the world. But our society is not set up for single people.
A person who is mentally ill will fabricate all kinds of scenarios that make no sense to a rational person to justify their actions. This is why having outside people for a reality check is the safest bet.
Some people are not suited to a romantic life. They make the wrong choices of who they get involved with, and then their best efforts can't do anything to save the situation because they're with someone who is fundamentally incompatible. I'm one of those persons.
When you start to give up things you hold dear for someone else's happiness they are rarely grateful. They instead try to take more and to start treating you with disrespect.
Selfish people rarely become unselfish. It is far easier for unselfish people to become selfish after interacting with a stream of selfish people.
It is possible to love someone and despise the same person at the same time. It's a weird feeling.
Two years without your principal creative outlet is very frustrating. In such cases it is wise to move to a secondary creative outlet.
Creativity is a muscle. The ability to create isn't a function of a natural creativity, it's a function of being creative. When a person starts creating creating more becomes fairly easy as the mind is tuned to thinking of new things.
Most people who think they're self aware aren't actually so. The first step in being self aware is to develop brutal honesty with yourself. If a person isn't honest with their own issues then it is pretty much a lost cause for them to be able to accept honesty from others. They can still be honest with others, but they won't let it work both ways. There's a simple test for this -- if you say "How could you say that about me?" then you're not self aware to the level that you're being honest with your self, while if you say or think, "Yeah, I know, and I don't need someone else telling me that," then you're on the right track.
Magical thinking is pernicious and far more common than most people think. To evaluate if you're doing this look at the steps between a goal and where you are now. If every one of those individual steps can be resolved either by resources you have now or things you develop in earlier steps you're probably alright, while any that require outside aid like angel investors, winning the lottery, or finding that perfect job in London are hallmarks of magical thinking, and unless you're very lucky you lack the wherewithall to acquire the goal.
Constant reminders of someone who burned you do not allow you to heal from their betrayal. And some people either don't care about what they left behind or do it so they can leave their mark. Either one is rude and may be construed as abuseive.
When someone says, "You're being selfish," they're talking about themselves. This statement most often means, "You're not doing what I want you to" or "if you do that I don't get what I want."
When a person says "I would never..." chances are good they will do exactly that. When a person says, "I did (x) because I love you," it is almost never true and there is another reason why they did what they did.
Everything has a season to it, even things that seem long term. This includes organizations, relationships, and even things like Live Journal.
Ethical behavior is rare, and even more so when one's heart is involved. There is no pagan board of ethics, and that is to the benefit of many people, because a log of folks would find themselves called on the carpet and censured if there was for the way they treat others and how they handle members in their group.
I think this is enough for now. I'm wiser, sadder, and more guarded than I was this time last year, but I'm more resolved too, and none of this is anyone's fault, it's just a culmination of a long thread of things. I get it now. And I will act accordingly from now on.
One more thing -- LJ is starting to get scant. I can't guarantee that this journal will survive 2012.
