Small Steps Forward

I love it when the world makes sense. So I was writing this out, and writing is like taking inventory sometimes, and it all came together.

First, we’re going to have to back up about a year, when I first started hanging out at this place. About a week or two of hanging out with the regulars, the subject of the owner came up and nobody had anything good to say about him. Actually, they were downright vehement in their hatred. Now, I had met the owner, and not only did he seem like a nice guy, he seemed like the kind of guy you would want to go have a beer with. A great conversationalist, someone able to hold forth on a range of different topics. But what did I know? I hadn’t been there long, maybe there was something I was missing. It did bug me, though, that in their rage, none of them could cite specific incidences; all their venom seemed kind of vague and generalized.

A couple of days later, the owner took a break and came out to chat up the regulars. And they were as sweet as pie to him. That’s when I knew that the owner wasn’t the problem. The regulars were.

And I had just left a whole slew of people like this. It had been such a put-your-head-in-a-blender-and-press-play experience that I swore to myself Never Again. I knew that the healthy thing to do with these people was to put a whole lot of distance between me and them.

Did I do that? Noo-oo-ooo. And I had a whole bunch of good reasons excuses not to: the place was convenient, the regulars were funny and bright (when they weren’t blaming others for their unhappiness), I could protect myself from their negativity without actually forsaking this place….

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It can be the hardest thing in the world to change your friends. Well, you can’t really call these people friends. Friendlies. Not friends.

Thing is, as much as I despised their behavoir, I was used to them and people like them. Like I said, I had just come away from a (long) experience with another crowd just like ‘em. So I figured, why inconvenience myself? I could stick around, hang on the periphery, laugh at their antics without getting drawn into their daily sturm-und-drang.

Ah, reflection statements. I used them like a shield. Whenever they started on some woe-is-me routine, I’d jump right in and start reflecting. Maybe they’d get some insight into themselves and maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, their negativity wouldn’t touch me.

One of the things Dan said during our assburger conversations is that I depressed people. It’s not funny, but I’m laughing now. I could see this happening. He’s probably right. No, actually, I’m sure he’s right.

These people aren’t very happy people. Which goes without saying. The thing is, when you’re using reflection statements to dig into something unpleasant, it feels worse before it feels better. Stick with it, and it always feels better. But you have to stick with it.

And I wouldn’t. I’d start reflecting, and as it started to feel worse, I’d remember all the people like them that I’d left behind. People who were more interested in complaining about problems than solving them. People determined that the world was blanked up and had to be fixed. (Not that the world isn’t blanked up and doesn’t need fixing; it’s just that anyone focused on fixing the instead of their world are good people to stay away from.) And that head-in-a-blender sensation would come back and I’d stop. I’d leave them right there, in the middle of their valley of death.

Yeah, I bet talking to me was depressing.

I have to laugh about this. It’s a very good lesson. Instead of seeking out people I wanted to be around, I used a lot of energy protecting myself from people I didn’t want to be around. And I do that a lot, I’ve noticed. Where most people see who others are and either decide whether or not to fit them into their lives, I see who others could be and keep trying to fit them into my life. I waste a lot of energy on people who just aren’t going to fit.

So I saw this group’s behavior and thought “yeah, what they’re doing is blanked, but since they are nutbuckets maybe I can …” And I can’t. They’re still focused on the world.

The funny thing is, I used to have a hard time staying away from this place and now I have a hard time making myself go there. My conversation with Dan was a real eye-opener, slamming home that the regulars aren’t who they could be; they are what they are right now. And that’s not what feeds me emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually.

When I hung up with Dan, I understood how much energy I had been using to cope with the crowd. I had basically been draining myself. And them! Not only was it wasteful, but completely unncessary. One of the first things I did after the call was to mentally review my other relationships with people and determine how to assburger them. Maybe there was more dead energy I could release. Maybe there were more dead things I could kill.

The next call I made was to a friend of mine, taking the subject directly into assburger country. It was fabulous. I need to assburger things much more often.