The Trouble with Me

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."-- Lady Nancy Astor (1879-1964), English politician, first female member of the British Parliament

I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I've been consumed with fear and worries that it's making my face gaunt and pimply and rounder. I can feel my body responding to my psyche that is troubled deep inside with worrying fears that it is literally almost eating away the good things in my life I hold dear --- wonder, smiles, laughter and moments of memories worth treasuring forever.

The process is slow and gradual and it is not absolute and harsh and one-time, big-time. It is not a big part of me or of my day-to-day activities. It's a nagging fear, small and sometimes repressible, but slowly but surely eating away my confidence and my hopes and my dreams. Think of small dark creatures inside of you, not detectable and not even significant in size and number, but eating small portions of your heart or your mind, those most valuable organs that you have. That is how this works.

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns all clean." - Maya Angelou, (b. 1928), African-American author, poet laureate, performer, composer, educator

I will do my tasks for the day. Yup. Eating, watching TV, reading a book, surfing the net, driving to school, writing my papers and so on and so forth, and one minute my mind is on my task, the next, I will be looking at the calendar and I will be reminded that there is so and so days left in March and Time is running out. Always, Time is running out. Time seems to always leave me behind and here I am, wanting to grasp Time by its lapels so I can hold on for just a bit longer and have Time still to do the things I needed to do.

Funny that I used to work in Sales. I worked against the clock, we were pressured from all directions, and of course, when one is pressured from all directions it will burst. (That's exactly what happened to me then, as my weighing scale constantly informs me.) And I know it will happen again. (Or it is already happening again.)

The problem really is that I think with these fears. I think of my hopes and dreams and how far away from them I currently am, not the small but significant steps I already took to get there.

"Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained."-- Robert Albert Bloch (b. 1917), American screen writer, "Psycho," "Psycho II"

Okay so I'm anxious. Worried. Afraid. I know exactly what are the things I'm afraid of and I've been coping with it pretty badly because I know that you have to face your fears and all that, but really, it is easier to ignore it and hope it will go away on its own. This strategy backfires all the time, because when it suddenly hits you, it will hit you like a tornado that you can no longer analyze or control and that will be worse than facing your fear.

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." - Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, essayist, stateman

Ah it is so easy to tell yourself that. I have been working on changing my mindset and attitude so that I can let go some of the fears and worries eating at me. I've been trying to tell myself that I cannot run my life based on what others will say. That is just the thing, you see. That is my ultimate fear and perhaps, what will surely eat me alive if I don't change my mindset right now. All these fears, the root of it is just that I'm afraid of what other people will say.

Oh, it's nothing like pretending I'm someone else to gain approval of others, no, I'm not like that. But still, I'm writing goals --- goals that are other people's expectations of me ---- that really are not meant for me. I began losing my perspective on what I really want and what I can really accomplish to what I fear people would expect me to be.

If truth be told, my biggest fear is that I'm being eaten away by fear of something so unreasonable as other people's expectations.

I don't like coming short of other people's expectations, but I hate, and I used the word 'hate' here, it when I think of my life being run by other people's expectations. And since I'm already worrying myself silly because of other people's notions --- that I should have a job by now, or that I should be married by now or what-have-yous --- I'm already living my worst nightmare.

I'm worried about what others think of me.

(Gah! Just writing that makes my skin crawl. Grrr....)

"If the grass is greener in the other fellow's yard - let him worry about cutting it."-- Fred Allen (1894-1956), American commedian, stage and movie actor, radio broadcaster

For example, I worry about not getting a job like regular people have jobs and like what regular people expects other ordinary people to do. I worry about what will they say about me still not teaching when I am most capable to teach now. I worry that I will not be able to teach at all. I worry that my friends will think less of me because of that.

I'm also afraid of being alone. I'm afraid of being old and gray and eating at restaurants alone on Christmas Day when people are with their families. I worry that I'll be an old maid and people will feel sorry for me because I'm alone. (Gah! There's nothing more galling and more infuriating than having people feel sorry for you. There you are, already feeling a little wretched and a little sorry for yourself and trying to steadily uplift your spirit by saying 'It's alright Elaine. It's alright to be alone. No one cares.' And then somebody, some abysmally insensitive cretin, will make it worse, infinitely worse, by saying 'Tsk tsk, you're all alone? No one special with you?' Grr. Please, Lord, give me strength!)

"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep."-- Dale Carnegie (1888-1955), Scottish-born American industrialist, philanthropist, educator

So, here I am, trying to find the roots of my worries and fears, and getting up and admitting all of them so I can change my mindset and attitude. It's not instant, but at least, I'm making progress and I already made the first step --- I'm no longer ignoring my troubles.

Hmm...this is already quite a mouthful. I have to write another entry for my changing mindset and attitudes.