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Yesterday at work led to this attempt at journaling, "OK, filing this out of cycle change request is like eating live spiders." I squirmed away from the task, i couldn't stop eating (but happily avoided sugar), pursued web distractions. This is a detail-perfect task, instructions on what should be done at 2 am Sunday morning. Penalties for not getting it right include causing an outage and being involved in troubleshooting in the middle of the night (although it's just 11 pm for me, so i'll try to stay up).
Another issue that made the task so repulsive is that it's tied to the misery of the past summer: the problems that caused this past summer's stress have not been resolved. I just understand the problem is so much bigger than me making mistakes that i can now rest with a Han Solo quotation, "It's not my fault!" My current strategy is to spread the misery: if other people confront the morass, then perhaps there will be some political advocacy to repair, at least, the technical gap. However, that means i'm putting someone new in the "Oh, my God, WHAT do i need to do?!" seat, prompting an email from the person expressing disbelief that its such a fiddly manual and complicated process.
I don't know how good they are at this, i don't know if they will get it right, i don't know if i'll be on the phone late Saturday night resolving an outage.
Admittedly, i'd much rather do all this than eat spiders, alive or dead.
But i finished, and i wrote as compassionate and supportive an email to the new victims and let them know that they could call me this morning after 6:15 my time, if they needed.
--==∞==--
Mom sent an email to extended family, including both Christine and her father's wife. I am wondering what this portends. Has she shared with her father's wife Christine's transition despite the near panic that she has at the thought of her father finding out and being upset? Or perhaps she thinks her father's wife won't make the connection. It was very nice that Mom addressed Christine as Christine.
For those of you who missed the saga some years ago: i am close to my mother and not to her father, so, even though i think she's making a mistake in her care for her father, i'm respecting her wishes. It causes me a bit of frustration at times, and i suspect my grandfather senses the mystery and may be worried.
--==∞==--
The person who i have been caring in Meeting for appears to have not surmounted the hurdle to be restored to hir former capacity.
--==∞==--
So this "Satisfaction Finder" talks of the "hounds of more, more, more" and it is in the place of "compassion" where i feel hounded this morning.
I recognize that i often feel on the outside of communities. I think i learned from my mother that one buys a place in community with hard work. I learned from my experience in the City Meeting that that's wrong: hard work does not create the connections that are community, the sense of mutuality. But i see the remnant of the older lesson in some of the "shoulds" that hound me.
The lesson with this "Satisfaction Finder" is to not deny the hounds (which i've gotten pretty good at), but to negotiate with them.
I am limited, all humans are. No matter how healthy, vital, well, i might be, there would never be enough to meet every need i can imagine meeting.
Community is built from mutual connection. The next steps of engaging in community with people known at a distance is not helping them when they are in need. I think this is where the hounds have a hard time leaving me alone. When i see a need, i think i do a healthy job of asking myself, "Do i have the capacity to help here, while still meeting other commitments?" and answering honestly. If i answer in the negative, surely there are plenty of times when that's the end of the issue. It's easy when it's a mailing list plea for a general cause: very distant community. It's easy, i think, when it's close community. (Not always so, but i've learned the lesson, i think, of over-giving. Hi, unfinished-dissertation.) When i make the decision, though, for intermediate community, this is where the hounds keep nipping at me.
Does it help to tell the hounds that they are wanting to buy admiration and community? To hold my mother's constant sacrifices out as, an example, with the recognition of the dysfunction?
Interesting: this exercise helped me reframe holiday card "shoulds" as well.
Another issue that made the task so repulsive is that it's tied to the misery of the past summer: the problems that caused this past summer's stress have not been resolved. I just understand the problem is so much bigger than me making mistakes that i can now rest with a Han Solo quotation, "It's not my fault!" My current strategy is to spread the misery: if other people confront the morass, then perhaps there will be some political advocacy to repair, at least, the technical gap. However, that means i'm putting someone new in the "Oh, my God, WHAT do i need to do?!" seat, prompting an email from the person expressing disbelief that its such a fiddly manual and complicated process.
I don't know how good they are at this, i don't know if they will get it right, i don't know if i'll be on the phone late Saturday night resolving an outage.
Admittedly, i'd much rather do all this than eat spiders, alive or dead.
But i finished, and i wrote as compassionate and supportive an email to the new victims and let them know that they could call me this morning after 6:15 my time, if they needed.
--==∞==--
Mom sent an email to extended family, including both Christine and her father's wife. I am wondering what this portends. Has she shared with her father's wife Christine's transition despite the near panic that she has at the thought of her father finding out and being upset? Or perhaps she thinks her father's wife won't make the connection. It was very nice that Mom addressed Christine as Christine.
For those of you who missed the saga some years ago: i am close to my mother and not to her father, so, even though i think she's making a mistake in her care for her father, i'm respecting her wishes. It causes me a bit of frustration at times, and i suspect my grandfather senses the mystery and may be worried.
--==∞==--
The person who i have been caring in Meeting for appears to have not surmounted the hurdle to be restored to hir former capacity.
--==∞==--
So this "Satisfaction Finder" talks of the "hounds of more, more, more" and it is in the place of "compassion" where i feel hounded this morning.
I recognize that i often feel on the outside of communities. I think i learned from my mother that one buys a place in community with hard work. I learned from my experience in the City Meeting that that's wrong: hard work does not create the connections that are community, the sense of mutuality. But i see the remnant of the older lesson in some of the "shoulds" that hound me.
The lesson with this "Satisfaction Finder" is to not deny the hounds (which i've gotten pretty good at), but to negotiate with them.
I am limited, all humans are. No matter how healthy, vital, well, i might be, there would never be enough to meet every need i can imagine meeting.
Community is built from mutual connection. The next steps of engaging in community with people known at a distance is not helping them when they are in need. I think this is where the hounds have a hard time leaving me alone. When i see a need, i think i do a healthy job of asking myself, "Do i have the capacity to help here, while still meeting other commitments?" and answering honestly. If i answer in the negative, surely there are plenty of times when that's the end of the issue. It's easy when it's a mailing list plea for a general cause: very distant community. It's easy, i think, when it's close community. (Not always so, but i've learned the lesson, i think, of over-giving. Hi, unfinished-dissertation.) When i make the decision, though, for intermediate community, this is where the hounds keep nipping at me.
Does it help to tell the hounds that they are wanting to buy admiration and community? To hold my mother's constant sacrifices out as, an example, with the recognition of the dysfunction?
Dear Hounds,
I know you want me to feel the richness of community. I do have community, and i do feel its richness, and, yes, there are so many wonderful people in the world with whom it would be wonderful to have a closer relationship. So, instead of stretching beyond capacity to meet that need/opportunity, what connections are in my capacity to nurture today, right now? Find me those, hounds!
Me
Interesting: this exercise helped me reframe holiday card "shoulds" as well.
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