What? Not Now!
I do not have to please everyone. I do not have to please everyone. I DO NOT have to please everyone!!!
However, I seem to have a need to please most everyone. Maybe please is not the right word, but I am so wired that I MUST respond immediately to people’s requests, demands, needs, and inquiries. Not only do I NEED to respond, but I must respond in the absolutely correct manner even if I do not know the answer. I SHOULD know the answer. If someone asks, I have a weirdly wired belief that I must know because otherwise, why would they have asked? It has run my life for most of it and therefore is second nature and my default.
In school as a child, if I could not raise my hand to correctly answer a question, I was a failure. Even typing that is heartbreaking and goofy all in the same moment. The whole point of going to school is that there is something to learn, and so how could I expect to know all the answers. Conversely, if I did my homework correctly, I should know the answer and therefore have my hand up. Rinse and repeat.
I am currently navigating the shoals of living and am in unfamiliar but not wholly unknown waters. I know just enough to think I should know more and yet know that it is not enough. I have attempted to talk with people who might be able to elucidate me on the fuzzy areas and the unknowns, but to no avail so far. I am being asked for information I do not have or know for certain but will soon. Yet, they seem to want it NOW not later and I will not have it until a bit later. The meetings and conversations are scheduled but just not on their timetable. It causes a level of anxiety that fascinates and exhausts me.
Just now I have realized that I can say NO. I can also simply state that I will not have the information until tomorrow or the day after. I can only do what I can do as I am relying on others for input. It took down the anxiety quotient appreciably, but it is such a foreign concept that I am still grappling with what it all means.
It comes down to how I view myself and my beliefs about how I must be to make the world happy and to be seen as compliant and capable. So much was instilled in childhood through example or spoken expectation. Then you add in your own layers of what you perceive the outside world is telling you and what you believe they want to see. A dash of “I’ll show them,” combined with a belief that you have something to prove tops off the whole concoction.
As tough as this is for me right now, I am grateful. All of this stuff has been a giant wall standing in my way, challenging me for years. I think now is when it all comes tumbling down because what I thought was the world keeping me out is simply a fortress I created to keep my stories safe and in so doing kept myself from even more possibilities of peace and joy.
See you on the other side. I will be the one picking through the rumble just in case there is a morsel or two to set aside for another day. Here’s hoping there’s not.
