After having a rather difficult start to the week, I’ve gotten a reality check: a professor in my department was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. It really puts things in perspective, at a time when I am starting to feel out of control and out of my element. Certain stressors are coming to the forefront and I feel compelled to do what I normally do, which is to say in the past I would let certain situations aware quite brutally that if you fuck with me or anyone I love, I will ruin your life. I’m not above destroying you in the sickest most painful way. And I will do anything in my power to ensure the people I love succeed, are happy, and take whatever consequences that come my way in doing so. I’m in no way afraid of challenges or of defeat. I am, however, terrified of taking anything lying down because it’s a sign of weakness. And I do see weakness as everything that I should overcome. I have at many times been weak and regretted it, seen it as a fatal flaw in my personality and resolved to eradicate it.
But for some reason, I am staying quiet before making any sort of abrupt decision on this. I don’t know if it’s a sign of maturity, but I do think that I may be learning more about how to communicate. Makes sense as I’m getting a masters in communications. Acting out has had a place in my history, but there could be another way around this. I may be determined to find out how. Or I may just be biding my time. Even I don’t know.
I’ve recently had to put a co-worker in their place and it was very hard to do while knowing this particular person has some form of anxiety, which manifests in OCD behaviors such as checking the door handles to make sure things are locked up before departing. This person also has an extreme preoccupation with confidentiality. I think this probably has something to do with issues of control. So when I had to confront this person on an issue related to getting my job done correctly, I had to put it all aside. And it’s hard. Managing some form of mental illness in either a professional relationship or personal one is certainly a challenge. Illness is a sign of weakness.
Sometimes, it’s hard to be a manager when you have no real experience managing people’s expectations or telling people to their face that they have failed you and you need them to do something… NOW – no excuses, no more bullshit. It’s just time to get it done. I had the backing of two superiors to this person but somehow it didn’t make things easier. I even had the offer of these 2 people talking to this person for me. But I knew it was me who had to be the bad guy. And I did it, with all the grace I could muster. And when I came back, I noticed the door to that office was closed. No doubt this person was upset and needed some time to process. And I can accept that. In a professional setting, it’s sometimes much easier to lay blame or incite fire under an ass – it has to be done diplomatically, to save face, to save professional relationships. In my personal life, things need to also find this balance, I’m realizing.
This announcement of the cancer spreading also comes at a time that I’ve recently complained about this professor with a co-worker who shared the same negative thoughts about this person. It was the first thing that popped in my head upon hearing the news: guilt. Not that I could have known. But here is another case of not knowing what a person is going through personally, mentally the struggles they face every day, that affects their outward behavior.
Folks, let’s not even mince words. Life is nothing, NOTHING, without your health. It’s the only thing that matters in this world. If you don’t have your health, you cannot accomplish anything else. So it’s important to keep that in mind. Which is another reason you really should eat right, choose a simple, sustainable plan, and try not to stress. I think stress is the driving force in lots of immune deficiency diseases. I also think that environmental stressors and chemicals that we face every day without our knowledge contributes to these diseases. And again, the importance of preventative and ongoing health care policies and insurance. How can you expect people to succeed without those things?
So when you read about my rambling on about what I bought and how much and then how I returned it… know that I do have moments of clarity. Moments when I realize things are much bigger than me, bigger than the narrow view I have of the world from a small town in central
And in the midst of all this war and gambles and defeat and victory, I’ll continue to work on finding a better way to communicate with the world around me so that I don’t have to escape for lack of a better way, but for gratification uses only.
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