Optimism
I want to know everything.
Mostly so I never have to be wrong.
I know, not a particularly noble pursuit of knowledge. For what it's worth, that's why I'm writing this.
It has come to my attention (obviously) that I need to change my attitude and response for when I come across something I don't understand.
Whenever I have to answer "I don't know", my cheeks flare with shame; the times I have to respond "Nope, didn't know to do that", I feel queasy.
I hate not knowing something. It wracks me with anxiety and makes me feel like a failure.
So of course I picked an uber-positive sunshine-emitting career field, right? Something padded with lots of affirmation and back-patting, yeah?
Ha. HAHAHA. Wrong.
I did the dumb thing I mentioned before: I started a writing business.
I intentionally picked something hard - I wanted a challenge. But one of the problems (slash benefits) of picking something hard is that you have to learn a LOT and, therefore, you have to say "I don't know" a LOT.
I understand and accept that - it's the nature of the beast I went forth to capture.
But I still have this problem where my palms start to sweat when I know I don't know. And since I usually find at least one (or twenty) new things every day that I don't know, I usually feel at least a little sick to my stomach all the time.
This pattern? This self-loathing and nausea? It can't continue. It just can't. I can feel the ugly monster, Burnout, climbing up my spine and I don't think he has to be here. I really believe that I don't have to feel nauseous when I don't know something.
Here's my thinking:
I want to minimize, even eradicate, the stress of 'not knowing' by changing my perspective on what 'not knowing' means.
Right now, to me, not-knowing is a vulnerability, a liability, and a weakness. It is proof to my exacting inner critic that I am no where close to where I want to be, and evidence that I will probably never get there - really, it's quite a charming cycle of defeat and self-loathing. Hence, the nausea.
Not to mention that fact that I'll never be omniscient (dammit).
But again, I really truly don't believe that my life has to be like this.
What I believe is that I'm giving my not-knowing to the wrong voice in my head. (Bear with me - not crazy, I swear)
See, there's this swollen greedy Critic in my brain, gleefully ready to gobble up my failures. And I have a habit of shoveling every thing I do right down his fat awful throat.
What I want to do instead is give my not-knowing to the tiny timid Optimist hiding upstairs, beaten-down in a cobwebbed corner of my skull.
Rather than fueling my ravenous perfectionism and self-doubt, I want to be feeding the same not-knowings to hope and optimism: then, hopefully, the exact same circumstances will yield a far different interpretation. Because where the Critic tells me that not-knowing is a demoralizing proof of failure, the Optimist tells me that it might actually be evidence of learning and growth, even courage.
THAT. That is the voice I want to listen to, and that's the attitude I want to adopt and grow into: to be sparked, not nauseated, by my not-knowing. I want to starve the critic and nourish the optimist.
I can't change the fact that it's impossible for me to know everything. However, I can change my perspective and response to the not-knowing. (And, strangely, making this change will make it much easier to learn and know more.)
I want to see my "I don't know"s as chances for honesty, to feel the privilege of an opportunity to ask someone better than me "What should I do?", to be grateful that I know people who are smarter than me, to relax and accept the fact that I don't have to know everything in order to be valuable. When I hear myself say "I don't know", I want to feel a twitch of excitement at the chance to grow, and explore, and learn.
I want not-knowing to be clarifying. I want every "I don't know" to be a lamp that lights an unseen path toward new knowledge, a new perspective, a new wisdom. I want to view not-knowing as an invitation to new adventures and a map to Frost's Road Less Traveled. I want to find the reward in trying something hard, in getting the tiniest bit stronger, in being a fraction wiser for the future.
I know that my acute awareness of not-knowing is good for me. I know that having to say "I don't know", having to seek out information I don't have, having to ask for help from other people, is good for me. (Builds character, right?)
And I also know that this different view, the optimist's view of not-knowing, is very very good for me.
Because in my job, this idiotically humbling endeavor of starting a writing business, my days are jammed with little failures and new mistakes and a LOT of not-knowing. All the time, my inexperience and inaccuracies are right in my face, and it is painful and embarrassing and downright uncomfortable.
But that's OK.
It's helping me to develop a habit of optimism. More accurately, it's forcing me, in an "eat or be eaten" kind of scenario, but that's beside the point ... because I like being forced to learn this. I like seeing the challenges differently; I like seeing the glimmer of adventure and possibility in my not-knowings.
I want to feed the Optimist.
Mostly so I never have to be wrong.
I know, not a particularly noble pursuit of knowledge. For what it's worth, that's why I'm writing this.
It has come to my attention (obviously) that I need to change my attitude and response for when I come across something I don't understand.
Whenever I have to answer "I don't know", my cheeks flare with shame; the times I have to respond "Nope, didn't know to do that", I feel queasy.
I hate not knowing something. It wracks me with anxiety and makes me feel like a failure.
So of course I picked an uber-positive sunshine-emitting career field, right? Something padded with lots of affirmation and back-patting, yeah?
Ha. HAHAHA. Wrong.
I did the dumb thing I mentioned before: I started a writing business.
I intentionally picked something hard - I wanted a challenge. But one of the problems (slash benefits) of picking something hard is that you have to learn a LOT and, therefore, you have to say "I don't know" a LOT.
I understand and accept that - it's the nature of the beast I went forth to capture.
But I still have this problem where my palms start to sweat when I know I don't know. And since I usually find at least one (or twenty) new things every day that I don't know, I usually feel at least a little sick to my stomach all the time.
This pattern? This self-loathing and nausea? It can't continue. It just can't. I can feel the ugly monster, Burnout, climbing up my spine and I don't think he has to be here. I really believe that I don't have to feel nauseous when I don't know something.
Here's my thinking:
I want to minimize, even eradicate, the stress of 'not knowing' by changing my perspective on what 'not knowing' means.
Right now, to me, not-knowing is a vulnerability, a liability, and a weakness. It is proof to my exacting inner critic that I am no where close to where I want to be, and evidence that I will probably never get there - really, it's quite a charming cycle of defeat and self-loathing. Hence, the nausea.
Not to mention that fact that I'll never be omniscient (dammit).
But again, I really truly don't believe that my life has to be like this.
What I believe is that I'm giving my not-knowing to the wrong voice in my head. (Bear with me - not crazy, I swear)
See, there's this swollen greedy Critic in my brain, gleefully ready to gobble up my failures. And I have a habit of shoveling every thing I do right down his fat awful throat.
What I want to do instead is give my not-knowing to the tiny timid Optimist hiding upstairs, beaten-down in a cobwebbed corner of my skull.
Rather than fueling my ravenous perfectionism and self-doubt, I want to be feeding the same not-knowings to hope and optimism: then, hopefully, the exact same circumstances will yield a far different interpretation. Because where the Critic tells me that not-knowing is a demoralizing proof of failure, the Optimist tells me that it might actually be evidence of learning and growth, even courage.
THAT. That is the voice I want to listen to, and that's the attitude I want to adopt and grow into: to be sparked, not nauseated, by my not-knowing. I want to starve the critic and nourish the optimist.
I can't change the fact that it's impossible for me to know everything. However, I can change my perspective and response to the not-knowing. (And, strangely, making this change will make it much easier to learn and know more.)
I want to see my "I don't know"s as chances for honesty, to feel the privilege of an opportunity to ask someone better than me "What should I do?", to be grateful that I know people who are smarter than me, to relax and accept the fact that I don't have to know everything in order to be valuable. When I hear myself say "I don't know", I want to feel a twitch of excitement at the chance to grow, and explore, and learn.
I want not-knowing to be clarifying. I want every "I don't know" to be a lamp that lights an unseen path toward new knowledge, a new perspective, a new wisdom. I want to view not-knowing as an invitation to new adventures and a map to Frost's Road Less Traveled. I want to find the reward in trying something hard, in getting the tiniest bit stronger, in being a fraction wiser for the future.
I know that my acute awareness of not-knowing is good for me. I know that having to say "I don't know", having to seek out information I don't have, having to ask for help from other people, is good for me. (Builds character, right?)
And I also know that this different view, the optimist's view of not-knowing, is very very good for me.
Because in my job, this idiotically humbling endeavor of starting a writing business, my days are jammed with little failures and new mistakes and a LOT of not-knowing. All the time, my inexperience and inaccuracies are right in my face, and it is painful and embarrassing and downright uncomfortable.
But that's OK.
It's helping me to develop a habit of optimism. More accurately, it's forcing me, in an "eat or be eaten" kind of scenario, but that's beside the point ... because I like being forced to learn this. I like seeing the challenges differently; I like seeing the glimmer of adventure and possibility in my not-knowings.
I want to feed the Optimist.
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