A daily writing project indeed.
I feel it pertinent to point out that I absolutely hate disappointing people. And not that anyone's religiously following my blog or that I didn't clearly say on day one that any days I'd miss I'd just have to make up. But I'm like four or five posts behind, and I hate feeling like I'm not living up to the spirit of the thing I've made for myself in order to GIVE ME more spirit.
I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Things do happen.
It brings up what I want to noodle about briefly and relatively vaguely for this post, though, which is what I wrestle with when I wrestle with disappointment.
Overachievers hate to disappoint authority figures, yes?
I mean I'll be honest.
I hate letting my parents down.
I cringe at even the slightest bit of trouble I get into with bosses, even when it's well deserved,
I try very hard to always be seen positively,
To be respected,
To be approved for the work I do.
It's very difficult to conceive of a world for me, at times, where messing up wouldn't be emotionally akin to running over a favourite pet on the street.
I punish myself severely so no one else has to.
In that way there's a little bit of the ghost of Hamlet hanging around. Hamlet's dad appears to him, whether in psychosis or paranormal event or whatever, and implores him to revenge his FOUL AND MOST UNNATURAL MURTHER!!!
And Hamlet spends the rest of the play shivering in the horrific shade of disappointing him.
Sins of the father, problems for the son. Men, in particular, feel that pressure in relation to their dads. The ones who predominantly teach them what it means to be a man. Can't disappoint them.
"To disappoint," I am reminded, comes from a French word, désappointer, which means to remove from office or appointment. Getting fired, actually.
And maybe it's the fact that I grew up in a French immersion school, but disappointing my parents has carried the same intensely hot, nauseous shame that flushes through my gums and down my throat and into my heart when I've gotten fired.
I've noticed I freak out pretty intensely when I feel like I've disappointed any authority figure. I did it a number of times this weekend accidentally, and seeing myself react the same way each time made me think about what's going on behind that. I must have a lot of authority ghosts floating around.
I think I've conceived of this top grad school I was rejected from as another form of an authority ghost. A high and lofty entity, whose opinion I feel I should respect and look up to, asking me to do or be in a certain way I cannot reconcile with myself, with my own behaviour.
There's an inevitable terror I feel about disappointing these entities because in some way I know I will. But I don't think that's as "woe is me I'm awful" a statement as it sounds.
It sort of gets at the whole problem with wrapping your self-worth up in pleasing others, whether they're authority figures or audiences or what. You're inevitably going to fail. You are different from your father, your boss, and ultimately, although you can make quite a concerted effort of doing everything FOR others, you ultimately have to act for yourself. You're the only one who'll do it. And you are going to do something, inevitably, that doesn't sit well with others, because it's not about them.
Maybe I am merely a victim of a very Puritan cultural upbringing, but I have to make a concerted effort to remember that it's okay to need what I need, and to put myself first.
I think it's easy to expect the worst of ourselves, that when we put ourselves first we're going to do so out of balance, we're going to become selfish, and really we should deny what we feel for the good of our betters, who really get it, who really understand, because we feel like we really can't. We'll kill our dad's murderer not because killing is definitely the answer, but because it's asked of us, and if we say no we disappoint the one thing that gives us value.
Hey, let's not do that, shall we? Let's value ourselves. And not just because other people tell us to.
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