[on disappointment]
I am terrified of disappointment. Not of my OWN disappointment, but of the disappointment of others. Of disappointing other people. There is nothing that makes me feel worse than to hear from someone whose opinion that I respect strongly that I have failed to do something that they wanted to a satisfactory degree, because then that makes me a failure and that is a feeling I just can't handle. When I compete with someone, and I lose, I don't ever feel like a loser because the opportunity to compete in the first place was a good one, and I enjoy competition and I'm always glad to have competed against someone who was better than me, in hopes that I can learn something from them and become a better person out of it. But when I have something on me to do and someone expecting something of me and I fail to deliver as per their standards, that is something I don't know how to handle, because there's no reason I shouldn't've been able to do it other than the fact that I'm just not good enough.
I didn't work hard enough. I didn't try hard enough. I didn't ask enough questions. I didn't read their minds to figure out exactly what it was that they wanted. I just didn't have the skills and maybe I shouldn't've taken on the responsibility in the first place. Yes, I learn from it, and yes it makes me push myself harder, but, unlike in a situation where I lose to an opponent, disappointing someone else makes me beat myself up. Even if I gave it my all, worked as hard as I could and did the best I knew how to do, if it's not what they wanted, then I'm not happy with it. I could've killed myself for three weeks trying to get a project done, but if the person I hand it in to is less than completely satisfied with it, I wonder why I didn't kill myself for four.
Or like in the situation that prompted this, I could have gone to speak to my boss on three separate occasions recently to figure out when he would need me for work, only to be told that he'd be contacting me with more information and not to worry about it, and so I prepared myself to receive information from him, and when I didn't I imagined he didn't need me. And then today I get an email saying that he'd sent me an email two weeks ago and why didn't I show up for work, and it was "unsatisfactory". And though I emailed him back and explained that I never got the email (which was a server problem on his end, mind, as the campus email system was not delivering emails properly), and though I'd been in to see him three times, and though I went and picked up the work and am sitting here staring at it and knowing that I'm going to kill myself this weekend to get it done so I can have it into him early so he doesn't think I'm a complete failure, I still feel like I didn't do enough, and I should've kept after him, and I should've known that he needed me x place at x time though he'd never given me any concrete answers about it. Yes, I realise this is irrational, and I shouldn't take all the onus on myself, but that's just the way I am. I can give something my all, but if it's not good enough for someone else, then I still feel like I'm not good enough, and that my all simply wasn't enough.
Maybe it's character building, that if someone is disappointed in me, I feel terrible and push myself to be better so that next time maybe I won't be such a disappointment. Maybe it makes me stronger, and I should be happy that people care enough to let me know that I am being disappointing. It's a thing I've had to deal with with my mum since I was very young, because I was just never.quite.good enough for her liking. My dad to an extent too -- if I came home with a 95% on a paper he wanted to know what went wrong. And now this semester I just feel like I've been a disappointment to everyone -- my grades are not as good as I'd like, which means my professors must be disappointed with me, both my bosses have been displeased with me despite my working as hard as I know how and trying my best to be the best employee I can be, I disappointed my parents by not getting into grad school...
And I think the worst part of it is that in all of this, despite the fact that I've given this my all and am doing the best I know how and the best I'm capable of, my opinion that I am a success is the one least important to me. I can't make myself care that I'm a hard worker or smart or talented or whatever because I'm not giving other people what they want. My take on things is irrelevant. And since I seem to live to please people whose opinions I respect and feel like a failure if I disappoint them, doesn't that mean I don't respect myself?
I've disabled comments on this post, which I've been doing more often lately, and following a conversation with Miss emcue, I'd just like to share my thoughts on that. Feel free to read if you're wondering what's up with that.
So I really, really like the LJ format. I like the ability to get my thoughts out there and to have a sounding board and an easy interface with which people can discuss things and share experiences and express their joys and their sorrows and so on and so forth. I love comment threading with you guys, and I love getting to know people through those comment threads.
But it seems to me that when something is posted with comments disabled, a lot of the time that's taken as a sign that something's terribly wrong and that it's up to you to contact that person by other means to figure out what's going on, and oh that person is just looking for attention, etc etc etc. I really hate that frame of mind. Yes, LJ is a shared space, but sometimes people just want to get their thoughts out there for their friends to see, but for whatever reason -- not feeling up to it, not open for discussion, navel-gazing, whatever -- they don't want comments on it. They just want the chance to use their journal as a journal, only the sort of journal you pass around to your friends on the playground so they can see what's in your head without you having to have a conversation about it.
I realise you've likely noticed the lack of fandom activity in this journal as of late. And you've likely also noticed that a lot more of the stuff I'm posting is about me, not just my day to day activities but the things going on in my head and the life changes I'm going through. I promised y'all last year that I was going to try and be more me here, and that I wanted to share Anj with you rather than just existing behind my characters and occasionally making an emo post that made little to no sense without context and then apologising profusely for it the next time around. And well...this is what me is. I'm trying to figure myself out, and some days I have these revelations about myself and I just have to get them down on paper, as it were, because if I don't then they slip away from me and I'm no further in my quest to figure out what makes Anj tick. I realise I could make these all private posts and not bother you with them, but I'm trying not to be the girl who hides everything she's feeling and always puts on a happy face, because that takes too much energy away from actually figuring myself out and is also a misrepresentation of me, which isn't fair to you guys. All I'm trying to do is be honest and let you see who I am, even if I'm only just coming to terms with it myself.
If this bothers you, you know where the defriend button is.
If you think I'm being pointlessly emo and I should just grow up and get over myself, then I'm sorry you feel that way. Maybe I should just grow up and get over myself, but that is what I am attempting to do. Grow up. It's not something that happens overnight, and it's not something I can just go away and do and come back when it's over and done with. I've spent years trying to do it alone without having a single person to talk to about any of it or who even noticed, save my parents, and then it was all their advice and their opinions and what they thought I should do and "here, do it this way, no, don't figure it out on your own," and that's not growing up, that's being moulded into a younger image of them. (My mum, mostly -- bet you knew I was going to say that.) And if you're thinking "Well that's just life -- everyone has to go through with it, stop thinking you're so special," then you're right. It is life, and everyone does have to go through with it, and I don't think I'm special. Or at least, not any more special than everyone else. I'm just...going through it myself right now, and I want you guys to be there to share it with me. If you don't feel the same way, like I said, you know what to do about it.