Having the title of my blog be adventures can be a bit imposing sometimes. It gives me this false notion of what I should be writing about on my blog, or what I should be doing with my life, I guess. That it all has to be some grand adventure.
I've spent the past month being very go go go, always doing something, always busy with something, cleaning up this, checking on this, talking to this person, going to do this, cooking this thing, reading this thing, writing about this, biking this place, working on this goal, go go go go go. And I realize why I've been like that, it's a backlash against how I was in my marriage, where I rarely did anything, and everything took tremendous amounts of mental effort to do. Momentum makes action easy.
I don't work in the mornings. So I rarely have to get up to be somewhere, and I can wake up leisurely and lounge around in bed. But I hadn't done that in a long time until yesterday morning. I woke up, and instead of like usual just starting in on my series of actions that would last me until it was time to sleep, I just laid in bed, and thought.
I am quite perplexed by myself. Because I would not say that I am a person who suffers from low self-esteem. I am very confident in myself. But then, I have a tendency to bend my will to others for the sake of avoiding disagreement, or at least doing it on the surface, and suppressing my argument. Like, when disagreement or something contrary to what I want comes up, I immediately react with this "oh it's fine" thing, suppressing my own desire, and just giving up on what I wanted. It is an aspect that makes it easy for me to get along with pretty much anyone, and be friendly with lots of people.
It makes me think of something Carolyn asked me, when I was talking to her about my marriage last July, and she said "When do -you- get to be happy?" My own happiness matters to me when I am alone. It is probably a big part of the reason I've been so happy this past month or so. Because when it is just me, I can care about my own happiness.
But then, like, while I realize this is a problem, it is also hard for me to accept that it is not simply selflessness (even though it in some ways leads to selfishness). Eh, I'll figure it out eventually.
"The grand problem is that of 'Unselfishness.' Note, once again, the admirable work of our Philological Arm in substituting the negative unselfishness for the Enemy's positive Charity. Thanks to this you can, from the very outset, teach a man to surrender benefits not that others may be happy in having them but that he may be unselfish in forgoing them. That is a great point gained." - The Screwtape Letters
ReplyDeleteMaybe its a little trite to quote from the Screwtape Letters but it honestly changed the way I think about a lot of things. One of those things was how I viewed 'sacrifice.' I think I came to the realization that I am willing to forgo whatever I want in trivial matters that actually end up in accumulated annoyance but was then too selfish in the points where it really mattered. I thought well I give in on everything else, so this important thing should go my way. If you read through 141-145 (in most additions) he talks about how 'unselfishness' can cause so much ill will in the trivial things. Also he talks about the different ways men and women view what it unselfish; not sure I completely agree on that point, but it is interesting none the less.
Anyway, just something I was thinking about recently and your post reminded me of it. Let me know what you think through!