Oh hi. Nice to connect again. Good weekend? Weird as fuck weekend? Terrible weekend? I know that any of these is a real possibility right now. I had this strange out of body experience realizing that it was Memorial Day weekend. It all at once felt nothing like that and everything like that. Did anyone else have that feeling? Do you feel like time is moving so fast that it being the end of May isn’t a real shocker, and yet, being home like this, it feels like barely any time has passed at all?
Time is such a strange feeling generally right now and it’s something I find myself struggling with quite often. I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but my real issue is that I can’t seem to get on top of it. Don’t get me wrong, as we never really have control over time (with few exceptions) but it feels particularly out of control with this giant external factor sitting like a 300 pound weight on our shoulders, no?
What’s even more fucked up and bizarre is that I couldn’t tell you if I want time to move fast so we can get the fuck out of this already or slow because I’m scared and generally, don’t applaud the speedy passage of time.
To be clear, this isn’t a post about staying in the moment. I think we’ve had enough of that for right now. This also isn’t a post about how to best manage your time while in a situation like this (sort of that in the post about routine). This is literally a post about time.
Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace was quoted as saying “the two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Man, that’s profound, no? We battle against patience and time, patience and time test us, and patience and time test those around us. In some fashion, those two factors are our biggest enemies right now, for so many reasons. And I get it, but it doesn’t make things any easier.
People are anxious. They are seeing time pass and they are nervous about their mental health, financial health, and physical health. Impatience is attacking the nervous systems of the angry and vulnerable. It is a disease. It is infecting the population sufficiently so that they are no longer making decisions based on reason and wisdom. They are making decisions to instantly quell the anxiety that accompanies impatience. Rather than finding strategies for calming the mind and spiritual center, folks are giving in to impulsivity. This scares me more than anything because like anything else in life, once a line is crossed, it’s nearly impossible to go back.
Once you’ve decided to ring that bell; seeking to suppress nerves related to feelings of annoyance and frustration by whatever means available at your fingertips (without thought and consideration), it becomes habit. What do I mean by that? Well, we often don’t take our response in one scenario and isolate it to that particular situation. It becomes our go-to.
If a rule or doctrine frustrates you and you elect to respond with defiance, it is unlikely that you will elect a more judicious course of action the next time around.
I’ve spoken to many friends about this very thing because I used to be someone who gave into the impulses I’m describing here. I would feel impatient and frustrated and I would allow myself to do the thing (whatever that was in the moment) to make it better. I formed a habit. Then I had to break the habit. That sucked. I mean really. It sounds trite when I say it that way, but that truly was the worst. I knew I had the issue but I just gave it and then I had to undo the damage that I had caused.
Connecting to men that weren’t nice or respectful was just something that I did. I even joked about it, heaven help me. Truthfully, I think you might be able to expand that to people (men AND just people were shitty and I accepted it). Someone would be shitty to me. I would try and stand up for myself. I would grow impatient with the lack of response. I would fold. It was just so fucking easy that way. It was. I was able to make myself feel better in the blink of an eye. Voila. Anxiety over.
You know what though? I didn’t feel all that good about myself. I actually felt terrible. More often than not, I caused issues for myself and the people around me (particularly those that cared about me). And then, like any other addiction or habit, I had to sort out how to undo what I had done. If you don’t do the thing to begin with, it might be challenging and feel unnatural, but working your way through that mess is actually a shit ton easier than unlearning a full ingrained habit. Once you’ve permitted the behavior, your brain tells you that you did it before and the world didn’t fall apart, per se, so why not do it again?
Well, because this is self-destructive behavior and disordered thinking. This is an unhealthy mind that needs help. An intervention. Assistance. Professional guidance. I am not writing these words with judgment in my heart. Remember when I JUST told you that this was me for the longest time? Guess what? I still struggle all the time with this. I just really cut myself a lot less slack when it comes down to going off the rails in that way. I don’t allow myself to entertain such flights of fancy.
Not even now. In fact, that bears a mention. It would be easy to allow yourself a crisis/pandemic exception. The world is a mess, so why can’t you be a mess too? Things are out of control and there is so little ‘good’ information. People are acting insane, so why not give yourself permission to do the same? Well, because you just shouldn’t. I actually can’t think of anything more critical that keeping all your regular shit together right now. It would be easy to allow yourself temporary slippage, but as I JUST said, when you do that, you’ll find yourself slipping down the same dangerous slope. Every time. I promise you that.
When you allow yourself to just give in, you disrespect yourself and you disrespect the people around you. It truly doesn’t matter if we are talking about maintaining social distance, wearing a mask, cutting off communication with people who are unkind or don’t serve us, over-exercising, etc. All of these decisions or thought processes or actions are impulsive responses responding to impatience. Frustration with time.
Here’s what I’m going to suggest. Let’s respect time a little more. Let’s be a little more patient. Let’s keep perspective. Let’s understand that it’s easier to do the work than undo the bad decisions. Let’s recognize that the way we spend our time speaks volumes to who we are. Let’s acknowledge that we can’t control time and well, a million other things lately, but we can control ourselves.
Time will pass. One day you will look back on this time or another time and you will examine your behavior. Your words. Your thoughts. Will you be content? Mostly happy? Proud? Ashamed? Regretful? Sad? What you do today WILL shape your tomorrow, however close or far that seems right now.
So yeah. Chill out.
Talk to you tomorrow.
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 