How to Accomplish Great Things in Life

OK, first off... the headline is a misrepresentation of what I'm actually going to write about. See, success is differently defined by each individual depending on what their particular goals are in life. Some of us have particularly defined goals, some of us are still wandering through life trying to figure out what those goals should be, and some of us don't even realize that we have goals.

I'm one of those people who is horrible at setting and keeping goals, because my goals depend so much on what I think I should have accomplished rather than what I have accomplished. It makes me confused about the path my life is taking (note the present tense) because so much of what I think defines me is the decisions I've made in my past instead of the ones I will make in my future. I'm confronting that idea head-on, because I think I'm trying to convince myself that's not the case.

One common complaint I hear from my single friends, and get asked about by absolute strangers (living in the South, y'all) is that as relatively young persons, we are expected to settle down and have children. That's a milestone that all "youngsters," but especially women, seem to be expected to have accomplished by the time they are... what, 30? It's a social pressure that is frankly demeaning for all sorts of reasons.

Some women and men are superbly picky about whom they choose to marry, and thus be the other half of their children's lives; this is me, if I even decide to become a mother. Some women and men have fertility issues that they can't address for a myriad of reasons I won't list on here. Some women and men just don't want to have children, and that is their choice. The Oatmeal puts that best into perspective, because this is also me. I'll babysit, but the thought of being responsible for the upbringing of another human being and helping them to understand the world around them is terrifying. That may change depending on lots of factors, but I very definitely don't have a biological clock ticking away at me.

That doesn't mean that we're any less accomplished. We're supposed to pick our battles carefully, but this is a battle against social norms that are reinforced by nearly every holy book or path to enlightenment I have ever studied, and further reinforced by those people who expect it from us, even strangers. Even more confounding is when society expects us to be accomplished at other things if we're not parents, much less if we are.

I thought I wanted to be a big-shot when I was a kid, even when I was very small. I expected to take over my mother's marketing/public relations/community relations firm when I came of age and continue to build it up. Long before we ever moved across the state and she dissolved the company, I realized I didn't really have that goal in mind. It was a pipe dream built on expectations that I couldn't yet understand. I enjoyed sitting in the receptionist's chair and handling the front desk, proofreading and editing what she and her staff produced, and assisting in getting marketing materials and mass mailings out the door, but being solely responsible for others' work and making sure it all got done when I wasn't even sure that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was just too much. That doesn't mean I'm not entrepreneurial in spirit — just that taking over mom's business is goal that's not important to me anymore. Having my own business that will lift or fall based on my own failings, and I don't have the pressure of ruining my mother's good name in the process? Yep, that's about my speed. Independence should have been my middle name.

Have I been successful in the working world? Umm... that is a double-edged sword. I believe that I have been perceived as a threat by a lot of my employers. I'm perceptive to a degree, but I think I'm really sensitive to clues to a larger picture, even if I'm not in on the plan. I challenge the status quo because I live to one of my father's mottos, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got." I care deeply about my coworkers and will find a way to encourage and inspire them, which managers think are a threat to their leadership skills. See my above statement about "independence" — that's a scary term to certain managerial types, but if channeled in the right way should be absolutely liberating to have in an employee.

So, my accomplishments are nil according to those two criteria, but I want to share what I do think are my biggest accomplishments, so far, as I define success.

• I survived a string of abusive relationships and came out stronger on the other side, and with better definitions for what I want from a life-mate.
• I graduated with a bachelor's degree from a really awesome school where I learned a lot about human interaction more than I learned about anything else.
• I held to my moral and ethical code, both the professional and my personal definition, despite some employers' insistence that I compromise my integrity.
• I have never stopped wondering about the larger universe around me and learning about it, and strive every day to look at it through the eyes of a child — it keeps your perspective small and your sense of wonder large.
• I have never stopped laughing and smiling and HOPING. Even in my deepest depths, when my heart was hardened and walled up, when my belief in myself flagged and waned and almost gave up, when I felt I couldn't go on — hope is such a powerful driver in my life. I practice hope every day.
• I've learned how my weaknesses are my strengths, because they make me who I am. They are the things that I will continue to work on throughout the rest of my life, for they are what keep me humble.
• I've accepted that I will never stop misunderstanding myself and questioning myself, and really examining the concept of "reality." I'm a multi-faceted individual, as we all are, and I love really understanding that about myself.

Define success by your rules and your rules alone. When you're on your deathbed, will you be saying "I did great things at my job; I hope I'm remembered for all the work I did!" or will you be saying "I lived a great life full of twists and turns, and I know people will remember me for that!" 

Robin Williams' Death Is A Reminder — My Reaction

I didn't want to confront this demon now, but now that Robin Williams has passed away, I guess I must try to express my reaction to how he died. I didn't want to ride the coattails of those who have somehow mustered up the emotional fortitude to write about his death, but... well, I am doing so now, aren't I?

I know the pain of depression very well, and the wish to just end it all because it hurts too much to go on. I feel like a drain on my family and friends, so I isolate myself from those who are, and hole myself up, which just feeds the depression even more because I feel like I've done something to wrong them.

In the past year, I have thought many times about ending it all. I drew up a pro and con list of reasons why I should go ahead and do it, and there were plenty of reasons in the pro column and not enough in the con column. That's not typical of most depressives, but I was trying to be logical about it. I wrote a note to each loved one, telling them how much I loved them and explaining myself as best I could. I guess I was stalling what I thought was the inevitable conclusion to my existence.

It is called a selfish act by many who don't understand why anyone would choose to end their life, and even though I am no longer so deep in that dark abyss I couldn't see any light, I still don't understand why someone would make such a hurtful accusation.

One could make the argument that it is making a choice about the way you go, and that's selfish — many people who have terminal illnesses do the same. I've watched many family members make those choices even when recovery was hopeless. I tried to talk my father out of his last surgery, but he was convinced that it would make him whole again.

One could make the argument that so many people attempt it for the attention, so of course that's selfish to do — I hate to burst your bubble here buddy, but the lack of attention to what they were trying to say has led those individuals to make that attempt, and it was unsuccessful for one reason or another. At least someone is listening to them now, and hopefully is getting them the help they desperately need.

One could invalidate the decision simply because obviously there's someone who cares about you even if you don't, so it's selfish to remove yourself from their life because you care about them so much — let me make one thing clear right now. You don't really believe that anyone cares about you. I can't emphasize that statement enough; you don't believe in your heart that anyone truly cares about you.

The young man I went to senior prom with died three years ago. He reached out to me through Facebook even though we were never close friends, and we talked about how important he was to his friends, his family, even the wife who left him. He pushed her away, he pushed his family away, he pushed everyone away, and yet he reached out to me. And he still did something to end his life; I never learned how, and I don't think I want to know. I know how I thought about doing it.

My friends and family made their love and care known nearly every day when I was in the deepest darkness. That did NOT mitigate the thoughts I was having. I honestly believed that they were doing it because they were wanting to use my darkness against me. I honestly believed that they were trying to control me or manipulate me in some way. It felt suffocating rather than liberating, and that was the depression whispering in my ear that they were just trying to stop what I was going to do anyway; that they were unfairly judging my innermost thoughts and invalidating my hurt and pain.

That sounds illogical, doesn't it? That's because there is no logic behind depression. If you just so happen to also have anxiety disorders, those paranoid thoughts feed the suicidal thoughts. The following thought scared the ever-loving crap out of me when it emerged. "If someone's going to rape me and kill me, or just kill me anyway, I might as well just cut out the middle man and get straight to it. Look at him... he wants to do awful things to me. Just look at that look in his eyes. He'll find you and hurt you worse if you don't kill yourself so he can't get to you." I wound up completely removing myself from even grocery shopping just because I felt like I was an easy target for someone so inclined.

Seriously?

Anxiety loves to feed the suicidal thoughts and magnify everything so that you're examining it all in excruciating detail, twisting it into all sorts of strange perceptions, and pours it all into the swirling maelstrom, making it larger and larger until you're swept up in this black twisting form that eats at you when you're awake and when you're asleep, when you're with friends and when you're alone. And you feel all alone in this torrent even when you're with those who love you. You feel utterly and helplessly alone.

So this is where I am now. From the depths of the rubble the maelstrom left behind, from my personal Hell, I'm climbing back out. The thing is, it's a comfortable and familiar pain in there and climbing back out is painful in a different way, and in some ways hurts far more. You have to pick those rocks that rubble is made out of up, examine them, and invalidate them somehow. You have to force yourself to look at what led you to the conclusions you made, and convince yourself that they are not what you thought they were. It's easier with therapy, because you have someone holding you somewhat steady while you do it, but it is still such a struggle. I still spin out of control from time to time, and it's no one's fault, not even mine. That's the nature of the beast. I have to remind myself that I am in control of this, and it isn't in control of me. That may not be the truth for everyone, maybe even not for me, but I still cling to it.

My message through all of this is please don't give up on your friends or family members that push you away no matter how hard you try to get through to them. They need you to remind them, even if they don't believe it, that they are important to you. Visit them as frequently as you can, hug them close, and listen to them even if it brings you down. Let them know that you're there, and don't let go, don't give up hope on reaching them somehow. Don't feed the storm; the worst thing anyone ever said to me when I was considering taking my own life was "You're going to Hell if you do it." It didn't matter to me, because I was already in Hell. I just hadn't made it official yet. And I hope to never make it back there.

What Makes You Tick? I Hope.

Last night, Mom and I watched a movie called "Noah." I had wanted to see this movie for some time. I study religions as a hobby, both ancient and modern, and I had heard a lot of controversy around this movie from Christians and Muslims alike (funny how that works...). I study religions because I am fascinated by what makes us human beings tick. Religion seemed like a good place to start, and I was right.

By the way, if you haven't seen the film: SPOILERS. There. Go watch it, then come back to read this.

This movie disturbed me greatly. 

Not because the story wasn't Biblically accurate; the story of a world flood has been documented in a lot of ancient philosophical or religious records, so the writers had to kind of blend all of them together and see what it looked like. I saw a lot of them used in this movie.

Not because the Sons of Cain were basically living as if the world were already a post-apocalyptic wasteland; I imagine that the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and trying to make a life in a virgin world would have its challenges. Especially if the culture surrounding you were built on the belief that you were cursed beyond all hope.

Not that Noah was solely focused and dedicated to what he thought he was being told to do by God, even if it meant sacrificing his own grandchildren; wasn't Abraham told to sacrifice his own son, Jacob, to test his devotion to God? Though I will admit, that's always struck me as not quite the God of the New Testament. I'll not go into much of a theological discussion about that here.

No — what disturbed me was the overarching message, over the environmental message, over the holy message, and the jumble of accounts of the flood. The message that there is always going to be evil in the world, and human beings will always take advantage of one another, and other creatures great and small, however and whenever they can.

Time and again I have read this theme in my favorite stories and watched it in my favorite programs and films. Time and again has this been proven true in historical records of the human race — most of the time, simply because the belief systems were different enough to make a difference to each party.

I know there is evil and danger in this world. My anxiety is rooted and confirmed in the knowledge that I have more to fear from my fellow man than I do from any beast, because some human beings will take any strides necessary to get what they want, use others as tools to get that want, and then discard them as trash when they're done. We call it greed and pride and lust; we call it by many names, and we call others infidel while we call ourselves righteous when we practice it.

But I can't believe that callousness and greediness blinds us to the plight of others and makes us think that we must take advantage of whatever comes our way that facilitates our own selfish goals. I can't believe that anyone could subjugate another living being, knowing that they were using that being for their own aims. I can't believe that people hurt other people in horrific ways just because they feel that they are in the right and therefore the others are not-quite-human because they disagree.

I've been thrown around like a rag doll. I've had the barrel of a gun shoved between my eyebrows while being interrogated about which I knew nothing. I've been pinned down and forced to do detestable things against my will. I've experienced that evil, that subjugation, that greed, that callous behavior.

I have also removed myself from that which oppressed me, with the help of my family and my friends, and repeated the process once or twice, because I might just have had a complex about it. I might still have bleeding emotional wounds from those experiences that have taken their own toll on me. I was strong enough to call for help and to physically remove myself from those who wronged me and hurt me and make me feel shame to this day, and I forgive them. 

I'm not naive to the ways of the world. Eh, I might be idealistic and I don't care that I am. But I can't believe that in the depths of my soul, because I'm also a human being, I'm depraved and tortured enough to use others, to hurt others, to... I just can't. I can't believe that there are more people out there who will take advantage of others, just because they can, than there are gentle and kind souls who will do to others what they would have done to them.

That's what kept me up last night. Those thoughts for all those who are more unfortunate than I break my heart every single day and the only thing I can do to stop myself is to shut out the world, and those thoughts, they still break me. They still stab me in the chest with something sharper than steel. My experiences with horrible treatment has honed the blade. All those feelings, and I still smile, and laugh, and do my very best to make others' days better, strangers and friends alike.

I watch children's movies, like "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Hugo," and I read fairy tales and historical fiction and science fiction, and I watch programs like "Doctor Who" and "Sherlock," and I do all of that because those stories, strange as it seems, they give me hope. They make me smile and laugh and believe that the world truly is a magical place where good deeds are rewarded. So I lift my broken and bleeding heart up and say this: I still believe that the world is good, and full of good people, and so what that I might reserve trust, but I will never reserve love. I will never reserve hope that we can all be better than we are right now, and even better in the tomorrows to come. 

I leave you with one final thought in a post full of heavy thoughts. I try to practice what I call "The Platinum Rule," which goes something like this: Treat others better than you would have them treat you in return. I fail and I falter in practice, but that just kicks me into trying harder the next time. Isn't that hopeful?