I am not a big believer in New Year resolutions. I remember the first one I ever did. Grade One. The teacher had a group of us students together and asked one of us what her resolution was. Dead silence. “Was it to cut down on candy?” The child nodded at that. Now we knew a correct answer! When she asked anyone else in the group, the teacher got the same response. “Cut down on candy.”
I have two things I want to try to change about myself. None of them are to exercise more, but I feel I will probably end up doing that anyway. Cutting down on candy is probably not an option either; I don’t eat much of that to begin with.
The first resolution: Be quiet. I have had it pointed out to me by a friend that I am rather loud. I believe him. I do tend to have a booming voice when I want to be the centre of attention. And who doesn’t want to be the centre of attention? So I am going to start work on this.
The second resolution: Hubris. I recently listened to an Escape Pod story called Beans and Marbles. The story itself was good, but what caught my interest was the ending outro by the editor of Escape Pod. He was talking about hubris and a lot of it stuck with me. One line was: “My particular issues make it very difficult to accept weakness in myself and that makes it hard to ask for help in the things I need to do. I don’t want to admit I can’t do it all myself.” I know that is true for me. I never want to admit I can’t do it all. I want to be perfect at everything, and that is impossible. I want to be the perfect party host. The perfect runner. The perfect friend.
So, as the editor says, I can “Fail at everything or start reaching out.”
His advice: “If you feel like you are too depressed, or too alone, or too proud to say anything to anyone else, take that as your willpower challenge. Don’t prove how strong or how weak you are by keeping it in. Prove it by not keeping it in. Talk to someone.”
So, I want to start talking to people (at a reasonable volume) and not bottle things up. I know there are vast parts of myself that I keep even from close friends. I will be more honest with them. I have found myself more relaxed and happy with people who I have opened up to. I don’t want to turn into a weepy girl though.
Maybe I should get psychiatric care? I have tried that in the past, but I don’t think I was totally honest with the therapist either. Probably not a good sign.