8 October 2010 -- Hard on!

Hey everyone, 

Hope you all took advantage of the new moon!  It is just past midnight in Belize and I was going to do my meditation, and goal setting before 3am.  

I got home a little while ago from meeting up with my friends Joe and Dominic at D'Sea.  When I got home, I had an email waiting for me from my mother.  I called her and she proceeded to tell me how much she liked my blog because it was "real,  honest, and legitimate."  I'm glad my mom is my #1 fan.... but I guess she always will be.  That's what moms are for, right?

She also mentioned how she thought I was an excellent writer.  

I immediately rolled my eyes in disagreement and said, "No Mom, I'm horrible.  You just say all that stuff because you're my mother and you have to."

She brought up a great point though, in rebuttal.  She said, "You need to believe in yourself.  I'm not saying these things just because I am your mother."  

I guess I just see things a little differently.  

Maybe part of the reason I am so HARD ON myself is because I think that I can always, continually improve.  I feel that if I get complacent, I will never grow.  I really try to strive for more knowledge, more information, more skill... more understanding... I expect that I always can do better, and to keep working for it.

Maybe another part is, if someone criticizes, I can say to myself, "Well, you knew you weren't great anyway."  It's like the analogy I use to relate it to taking an exam in school.  If the exam was more difficult than expected, I say to myself, "I KNOW I failed."  That way, if I actually failed (which hasn't ever happened by the way), I can say to myself, "I knew it was going to happen."

I'm not disappointed.  I already expected it to happen.  If I got anything better than an "F", it was a pleasant surprise.

So why do I anticipate the negative?

I guess on one end, I don't ever want to be a "dreamer" or a "wishful thinker."  I don't want to be off in some random dreamland, where everything is puppies and rainbows.  Life isn't puppies and rainbows.

So does this mean I'm a worrier?  Well, yes.  However, in this sense, I'm not really saying "anticipating the negative" is synonymous with "worrying".  Once I make up my mind, usually immediately, regarding a situation, I no longer stress about it.  My mind is then made up- I just think the worst is going to happen.

Joe's argument is that I might be, "Just a pessimist then."  I would see it more applicable in this particular situation, however, it's not EVERY situation that I immediately think the worst.  I can think back to when I played volleyball.  I knew that depending on the team we challenged, we might not win, but I was going to "play my best".  I left it up to my abilities and hard work.

Maybe that's the moral of the story.  

If I just "try my best," I should be okay with ANY outcome.  I should have confidence in myself that I really did legitimately attempt something full-force.  Whatever the outcome, I will still be okay.  

Also, I guess that for something as subjective as writing, people might or might not like it- that's just how it is.  

Maybe I just wish things were simpler.  Maybe why this is why I was always good at math.  There was always one right answer, even if the answer was "no answer".  God, I miss math.

Anastasia

Always remember:   "Don't be so HARD ON yourself"