If > Then... I Am NOT a Computer Program.
Oct. 18th, 2011 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
The power of these unspoken maps should not be underestimated. For the endless gravities of expectation we move in and out of govern most of our thinking and summon most of our energy in denying them or complying with them.
What can I say about this except that I own this fully – it seems to be programmed in to my DNA these days… the following of unspoken maps, the yielding to unspoken pressures. Expectations of how I'm supposed to respond to a given event, or parts of a conversation just drive me in a way that I don't like… and mostly I don't like it because it's never right. It might be what's expected, but when the expected is delivered, it isn't at all well received. I guess that's one of life's stupid ironies.
The hardest part about it all is that in my head, and in my heart, the 'me' response gets crushed by the expectations. Have I become so cowed by societal/community/whatever expectations that I can't be myself now? Is that it? Am I really so pressured by my perception of what others think of me that I have been crushed to the size of a spec, and am no longer myself.
Then there are times when I don't do as expected – I just worry myself sick.
It's no one's fault. I've always been this way, I just used to refuse to surrender to the impulse, live with the worry (or somehow ground it). I don't know why I am not doing that any more. I'm just so tired of disappointing myself and everyone else I know by not being the person I am. I've had enough.
And yes… I hear you all saying 'so do something about it' (is that the expected response to someone telling you that you've had enough? – just a little tongue in cheek irony)… so I ask, what…? And how?
You are the laboratory
and eery day is an experiment.
Go and find what is new and unexpected.
--Joel Elkes
The power of these unspoken maps should not be underestimated. For the endless gravities of expectation we move in and out of govern most of our thinking and summon most of our energy in denying them or complying with them.
What can I say about this except that I own this fully – it seems to be programmed in to my DNA these days… the following of unspoken maps, the yielding to unspoken pressures. Expectations of how I'm supposed to respond to a given event, or parts of a conversation just drive me in a way that I don't like… and mostly I don't like it because it's never right. It might be what's expected, but when the expected is delivered, it isn't at all well received. I guess that's one of life's stupid ironies.
The hardest part about it all is that in my head, and in my heart, the 'me' response gets crushed by the expectations. Have I become so cowed by societal/community/whatever expectations that I can't be myself now? Is that it? Am I really so pressured by my perception of what others think of me that I have been crushed to the size of a spec, and am no longer myself.
Then there are times when I don't do as expected – I just worry myself sick.
It's no one's fault. I've always been this way, I just used to refuse to surrender to the impulse, live with the worry (or somehow ground it). I don't know why I am not doing that any more. I'm just so tired of disappointing myself and everyone else I know by not being the person I am. I've had enough.
And yes… I hear you all saying 'so do something about it' (is that the expected response to someone telling you that you've had enough? – just a little tongue in cheek irony)… so I ask, what…? And how?
