I need to step up my game

I can be pretty hard on myself every now and again. But really? Who isn’t? Everyone’s got their insecurities and moments of self-doubt. I just feel like I have them more than others….no, that’s petty. I take that back. I’m not so important that I can proclaim moments of self-doubt are more frequent   or stronger than others. And who cares if I feel a little bad sometimes. Americans are far too obsessed with being happy. It’s perfectly normal to be unhappy sometimes. I’m sure I’m just another cog in the machine and there are thousands of others who are in much worse circumstances than I. I need to quit being such a whiner. I need to step up my game.

I really don’t know if it’s worse for me to be a failure or semi-successful. I’ve come to define myself with mediocrity, arbitrary decisions and passive-aggressive attempts to resolve conflict. The particularly shameful thing is that I know what I can do to succeed and I’m not doing those things. I know how to set myself up for the best-possible results.

  • I’m sure that if I don’t like how hard it is to do things because of my weight, that I need to get more exercise and limit my caloric intake.
  • It’s a given that identifying challenges and tackling and conquering one to move on to the next in an organized fashion makes for productive work flow.
  • Experience tells me that planning a change in my schedule makes me instantly happier just because it’s different.
  • I’m convinced that eating unhealthy food makes me feel physically bad and healthy food makes me feel physically better.
  • I get excited about learning new things and feeling dumb and useless makes me depressed.
  • I know that the happiest times of my life have been when I’ve been physically active and the saddest when I’m nearly sedentary.
  • I know that blogging when I’m sorta sad makes me feel better (I’d better watch out or I’ll end up with a boatload of useless, sad blog posts.)

Why don’t I quit whinging and do these things?

I find in the end that any amount of self-pitty can be tied back to my own laziness and fear of success. Heaven help me if I let anyone expect too much from me…what if I can’t keep it up? I’m really ashamed of that, but it’s true. I’m fundamentally a tremendous procrastinator. I become overwhelmed with the smallest decisions and I find myself looking for every-day distractions to force me away from the task at hand. Isn’t that terrible? Whatever happened to the days that I’d go to the painting, sculpture, or ceramics studio and hours would go by without notice? Those were the most hopeful years of my life. What ever happened to that? Why can’t I just be good at the things I’m good at and bad at the things I’m not?

So this is my cheap therapy. I’m pretty ashamed of all this and don’t want to share it, but it seems somehow useless if I don’t click publish. I don’t want to talk about this. If you mention this to me, I’ll deny that I wrote this. This is not an intervention case either. I’ve already decided that if I ever get to a point that I’m feeling self-destructive, that I’ll schedule an appointment to donate my precious pint of O-negative to the Red Cross–at least then it will be useful to society. If you think I’m nutty, I challenge you to look within. I’m sure you’re a little nutty yourself. Don’t be critical. It’s okay if I’m in a funk and this makes me feel better.