Dont Be This Girl. She is Irrational.

To a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, I am irrational. I see the worst possible outcome in everything, ooh be realistic here, I only do that because it helps me overcompensate..I can also accuse me of wearing rose-colored glasses, but I digress..back to my question, am i irrational? Here irrationality is defined as the tendency and leaning that humans have to act, emote and think in ways that are inflexible, unrealistic, absolutist and most importantly self- and socially-defeating and destructive. So one day, you see, I wake up and decide its time to kill myself...since i'm not useful yet, i might as well die..its that all or nothing thought process that brings me back again and again to the starting point in a lot of things I do. I sit and give myself absolute terms,..it either works this way or i'm done. I try up to the point where i cant try anymore and I look back and see all my hardwork go down the drain, it doesn't feel good at 1st,..but i learn to live with it. You as a reader are probably wondering where this is going to aren't you?,..I'll tell you. The inflexibility in the decisions i make about very little things allows no room for growth so i stay stagnant and when nothing works the way i want it to, i get depressed and in the depths of my self inflicted despair i look up and cut myself a little more for being inflexible. You see...its a cycle. but its one i'm very used to. i don't know how to be someone else. i don't know how to allow for the mistakes i'm sure to make. i'm so mean to myself. i tell myself what a failure i am day in day out,.i hear it when nobody says it, i hear it when people say otherwise, i see myself mocking me when i look in the mirror, so each year  i outdo myself..i wake up and say, this year has to be better but it is not even within limits. i reach for things i cannot have maybe its the knowing that i will fail at it or maybe its just the pain i get from failing that makes me not try hard enough. either way, i fail, again and again and again. If you are reading this..this is not a suicide note..this its just a glimpse into how you should not live your life. be flexible...allow the simple things, do not over-think it, don't drown yourself in your head. you're wondering why i'm not taking my own advice aren't you?..my answer is simple. i know what is right,i just don't believe it. i don't know how to explain that...but that sums me up in one sentence. Again, before you find yourself a little too far gone down this road i have chosen for myself, I want you to always ask yourself if you are irrational.. Can there be another explanation for this??...Does my perspective seem a little off? can I do this? Is this within limit or it just a little past my comfort zone enough for me to accomplish it? Am I being completely objective with this particular course of action? If you are not satisfied with the answers you get, retrace your steps, you cant get proper results when you do the right things the wrong way or vice-versa. Don't be like me the irrational thinker. Don't live the unhappy life I choose to live. Don't be this girl.

My impositions may be the reason for my unhappiness.

“Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.” – Charlotte Bronte.

Now:

Expectations: that’s a good place to start. We are always somewhat victims to our inflexible expectations. We want something and we want it when we want it. We impose our wants and hopes and feelings of expectancy on people and we tell them how we hold them in high regard. How we somehow assume the right to impose such a burden on another human being I know not. We expect certain standards like we deserve it and we tell ourselves that it’s because we know the other person can handle it. I think it’s a burden. You don’t know for certain that someone can fulfill your expectations of them. We were born into our lives and all of it we have someone imposing something on us. It’s like….do we even get to not care for it…I mean.. My mum expects me to pass while I expect her to pay my fees….what happens if we let each other be??... Everyone would walk around with sad countenances and we would be disappointed in ourselves. While I believe that expectations are useful for civilization and while I will still impose upon the people I love the weight of the things I expect for and from them I wonder if it’s truly altruistic (bear in mind that I don’t believe in true altruism). Do I expect something from someone because I feel like they are capable and it would make them happier or purely for my own gain?...I sometimes wonder if  the weights of my expectations are crushing someone else. Does it hurt for them to look at themselves from my perspective? Sometimes some people can’t just do it!...they can’t live the way you want them to, they can’t feel what you want them to. You need to lower your expectations and accept that they can’t do it. You need to let them know that it is okay if they can’t reach as far as you want them to be. Of what good is their anguish to you when they feel like failures and they cannot accomplish what you expected? It is a different case when they share your aspirations and they want the same thing for themselves. A mother expects a child to walk btw 8mnths of age and 18months. They do it simply because its natural and  it is not unreasonable: but to expect a child to fly even when you can’t do it yourself  and justifying that by saying you want them to do something you can’t achieve is simply being unreasonable. Sensitivity is key in these things. I will try not to expect something I cannot achieve of someone else except they assure me that they think they can. I can encourage you to want better…but I will not be disappointed if you are satisfied with whom, how and where you are. People would call it mediocrity.. I call it knowing your limit and being comfortable with it. If you want more…achieve more. If you don’t and you’re happy and content, who am I to want more for you? Who am I to say that you should want more..Who am I to impose my expectations on you? I am quite ready to accept that not everyone can be great. I’m not saying don’t try,..im just saying don’t make other people try if they won’t be happy doing it. Not everyone can be great. The song “I wish we all could win” makes me think that if we were all winners, there would be no concept of failure. One has to be for the other to exist. There can be no good if there isn’t bad. You don’t want to be disappointed,…wear the other person’s shoes, see what the weight of your expectancy does to him/her…judge it as if you were him/her. See what he/she sees. Be them. Be flexible. Don’t hurt yourself and hurt others in the process. Stop setting yourself and others up for disappointment.

“The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty. But the man, who has always pinned all his hopes on the future and lived with his eyes fixed upon it, has nothing in the past as a comfort against the present's afflictions, for the past was nothing to him but a series of hastily experienced stages. What blinded him to himself was his expectation always to find further on the happiness he had so far missed. Now he is stopped in his tracks; from now on nothing remains behind or ahead of him to fix his gaze upon. “- Emile Durkheim

Im new all over again...

Yup. I'm back from the dead. its been forever since i did this so please allow me to introduce my writing, for those of you revisiting my blog and for those that are new, I made some revisions to how I will be writing. I'm still a little rusty and i am trying out ideas and things so be patient, i will one day write the perfect post. I’d like you to know that most of the things I will be writing will be my musings, the things I think about, the things I know I’m wrong about, I am very open to people telling me what they think is wrong about my ideas. I love a good argument but you have to know that I will not always see it your way; I may not accept things even though I can reason them to be right because I am human and stubborn and want to think my way is right. But I will always respect your idea and opinion and I will try to see it. I think that’s what annoys people the most, when someone does not accept their point of view even if it’s right. I’m different in that it’s your point of view, its right to you therefore in your reality it is right. I do not accept or agree with it but it’s yours and I respect it. Generally, the tone of my writing will be as though I am conversing with myself. it might be controversial, different, conflicting, even paradoxical sometimes but it will be from my heart. It will be ramblings but I will try to make sure that you make some sort of sense out of it and I will use a lot of quotes.