“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” ~Henry David Thoreau
Among many of the afflictions I currently possess (now into the second week of my, “Hey, I can wear an Awareness shirt every day of the week!”), the last thing I would have ever expected from my GP’s office was the following:
Me: Hi there! I’d like to make an appointment to see Dr. A?
Them: Oh, her assistant isn’t in today, can you call back on Monday to schedule your appointment?
(O.O)
I shit you not…only in my made-for-tv-movie kinda life.
So I went to a clinic.
I got myself an answer.
I expected this answer.
I am still going to need to call my damn GP on Monday.
*headdesk*
Moving on.
Regardless of any physical limitations imposed upon my decrepit carcass, I continue to strive towards a sense of purpose and/or fullfillment.
For example, I continue to learn and teach myself new things. Even when my hands don’t work to craft art, or…y’know…brush my teeth.
For example, I continue to try to make myself a better person. Even when I’m down myself for not remembering important things.
One of the points of understanding about myself that I’m attempting to work on:
I try not to answer a post/comment/status/tweet with “I”.
Okay, let me clarify:
I try not to answer a post/comment/status/tweet with “I” when said post/comment/status/tweet is expressing statements of personal angst/health/upset.
Now, this is something that has taken me over two years to figure out that I do, in fact, do this…which actually occurred as a moment of epiphany…total lightbulb over the head kinda thing. Really cool shit.
Anyhoooooooooooooo….I’d noticed that in my greatest efforts to make someone understand that I’d “been there, done that”…that I was, in fact, invalidating their own personal experience.
This has been of utmost difficulty for me to digest and comprehend because I truly want people (not specific people…I mean, “people”…in general) to know that I can EMPATHIZE in some way…not just some Sheldon Cooper-ism of, “There, there.” I often feel that I need people to KNOW I understand.
This is also how I know that there have been some “people” in my life who have come to perceive me as being “selfish” and “self-oriented.”
Okay, self-oriented is a given….it’s my life…”self-preservation”…duh. *eyeroll*
But, truly, I had to take a hard look at myself, figure it out, and improve upon it.
I still endeavour to practice and solidify this skill.
My question to you is: What have you come to understand about yourself that has made you want to take action to improve upon it?
*Image by Matt Cinque | Flickr via Creative Commons
On a personal note, I really appreciate when you give a personal insight on my posts, however I too can understand how not all feel that way. I also suffer from making personal comments on posts of others for the exact same reasons and often feel it may come across the same way. It is who I am afraid. 😀 Now that this post is done I have done just what your posts talks about. 😛 *le sigh*
It’s something I try to look at just before I hit “enter” 😉 Sometimes I change what I write, sometimes I delete it all…I *think* I have a better understanding of when to use personal analogies and when someone who I’m trying to relate to just wanted to get it off their chests and aren’t looking for specifics 🙂