Resisting Change and the Oxymorons That Come with It
A friend of mine posted a status update on Facebook that really got me thinking about myself: "Temper gets you into trouble. Pride keeps you there." - John Ruskin
I know that I have a "temper", and that if I believe that I am right; then I am right. Pride keeps me from faltering and from moving away from my stance. Pride keeps me from changing my point of view and what needs to be done to fix things: lower my expectations and compromise. In other words, I need to change my beliefs to be able to empathize with another person. It also my pride that keeps me from being narcissistic, but it is what makes me emotionally unstable and irrational. It is finding a balance between pride and empathy that I dedicate a lot of my energies to.
I find that my own experiences (as I've mentioned in previous entries) reflect the experiences of my boss' interviewees. Another theme that I keep coming across in my data is how the interviewees constantly insisted that "change" was needed, and yet they themselves refuse to "change". I see myself in them in so many ways. I keep saying that I want to change, but I'd rather let other people do the "changing" instead of me. If I think about the time, effort, and the resources needed to reconstruct myself after destroying a previous part of me, it really daunts and boggles me. I see no reason for me to change. I can say, like all these interviewees; that I need to change so that I can mature, but the truth is: why should I change right now? It's so much simpler to procrastinate the change or just stay as I am.
Like the interviewees, I find that I am forced to change because of changes in the environment. For me, I find that the people around me are moving away, exploring different aspects of themselves (career vs. marriage), and becoming their own person. For them, it's about destroying years of experience in a field in order to reconstruct a new one to adapt and survive the new demands for a piece of technology. Both of us are going through identity crises. I am trying to find myself by writing journal entries, doing my thesis, doing other people's research, and constantly being with other people. They are trying to survive the new shift in their environment. My experience leans more towards exploring different possibilities while they find themselves thrust into another quarter-life crisis. The difference between them and myself is that I am still young and naive. I still have the ability to completely change myself, take huge risks, and do the "unforgivable". They, on the other hand, are bound by mountains of expectations.
Expectations. Now that's another theme that keeps surfacing in the data. Expectations create tensions in the self. I've come to feel tremendous pressure because I allow myself to be weighed down by other peoples' expectations. Sometimes I don't even bother asking why I need to live up to their expectations because I've labeled myself as this kind of person and that I would not do this or that. The ironic thing is that I keep saying that I want to explore and that I want freedom and all those industrial revolution values, but the reality is that I've kept myself in a box. I've limited myself by putting myself down in front of others, and my excuse would usually be that I had cracked under the weight of the expectations that they had held for me.
I'm being childish and irresposible when I impose this kind of limit on myself. Yes, I hate being told what to become. I hate being forced into something that I think that I don't believe in, nor do I feel compelled to do. I resist the change you try to impose on me because I don't want to change. I like to hide behind the security of probabilities and negative predictions of the future. I feel less threatened when the world around me crumbles instead of having to face the "me" that is crumbling inside.
Screw everyone else! Just don't screw with me.
What a pathetic attempt to cast a veil of control over the inevitable process of change! I am pathetic for resorting to such an immature defense mechanism, and I am disgusted with my mindless use of it. I know that I am more than I think I am, but I am content to hide behind that label of "knowing" rather than "doing".
It is in choosing to do something that I feel most vulnerable. It is the repercussions of my actions that I always fear, and that I can't help but ruminate and obsess over and over again. It is in taking responsibility for my own actions, and rising above it that I fear. I cling to my own illusions and delusions with a tenacity so ridiculously irrational that I turn away from myself and look at other people's issues instead of mine.
It's so much simpler to hate others than myself. I always tell myself that. Aggression directed outwards rather than inwards is easier to experience.
So I find myself in a corner....
Maybe when I see myself from another perspective, I may see that I wasn't in a corner all this time. Maybe I have had everything I ever needed to really be me. Little by little, I teach myself to change my view of this world. I still resist that shifts. I accept that I am stubborn, proud, and greedy, but I refuse to let these feelings confine me into that little box.
I know that I have a "temper", and that if I believe that I am right; then I am right. Pride keeps me from faltering and from moving away from my stance. Pride keeps me from changing my point of view and what needs to be done to fix things: lower my expectations and compromise. In other words, I need to change my beliefs to be able to empathize with another person. It also my pride that keeps me from being narcissistic, but it is what makes me emotionally unstable and irrational. It is finding a balance between pride and empathy that I dedicate a lot of my energies to.
I find that my own experiences (as I've mentioned in previous entries) reflect the experiences of my boss' interviewees. Another theme that I keep coming across in my data is how the interviewees constantly insisted that "change" was needed, and yet they themselves refuse to "change". I see myself in them in so many ways. I keep saying that I want to change, but I'd rather let other people do the "changing" instead of me. If I think about the time, effort, and the resources needed to reconstruct myself after destroying a previous part of me, it really daunts and boggles me. I see no reason for me to change. I can say, like all these interviewees; that I need to change so that I can mature, but the truth is: why should I change right now? It's so much simpler to procrastinate the change or just stay as I am.
Like the interviewees, I find that I am forced to change because of changes in the environment. For me, I find that the people around me are moving away, exploring different aspects of themselves (career vs. marriage), and becoming their own person. For them, it's about destroying years of experience in a field in order to reconstruct a new one to adapt and survive the new demands for a piece of technology. Both of us are going through identity crises. I am trying to find myself by writing journal entries, doing my thesis, doing other people's research, and constantly being with other people. They are trying to survive the new shift in their environment. My experience leans more towards exploring different possibilities while they find themselves thrust into another quarter-life crisis. The difference between them and myself is that I am still young and naive. I still have the ability to completely change myself, take huge risks, and do the "unforgivable". They, on the other hand, are bound by mountains of expectations.
Expectations. Now that's another theme that keeps surfacing in the data. Expectations create tensions in the self. I've come to feel tremendous pressure because I allow myself to be weighed down by other peoples' expectations. Sometimes I don't even bother asking why I need to live up to their expectations because I've labeled myself as this kind of person and that I would not do this or that. The ironic thing is that I keep saying that I want to explore and that I want freedom and all those industrial revolution values, but the reality is that I've kept myself in a box. I've limited myself by putting myself down in front of others, and my excuse would usually be that I had cracked under the weight of the expectations that they had held for me.
I'm being childish and irresposible when I impose this kind of limit on myself. Yes, I hate being told what to become. I hate being forced into something that I think that I don't believe in, nor do I feel compelled to do. I resist the change you try to impose on me because I don't want to change. I like to hide behind the security of probabilities and negative predictions of the future. I feel less threatened when the world around me crumbles instead of having to face the "me" that is crumbling inside.
Screw everyone else! Just don't screw with me.
What a pathetic attempt to cast a veil of control over the inevitable process of change! I am pathetic for resorting to such an immature defense mechanism, and I am disgusted with my mindless use of it. I know that I am more than I think I am, but I am content to hide behind that label of "knowing" rather than "doing".
It is in choosing to do something that I feel most vulnerable. It is the repercussions of my actions that I always fear, and that I can't help but ruminate and obsess over and over again. It is in taking responsibility for my own actions, and rising above it that I fear. I cling to my own illusions and delusions with a tenacity so ridiculously irrational that I turn away from myself and look at other people's issues instead of mine.
It's so much simpler to hate others than myself. I always tell myself that. Aggression directed outwards rather than inwards is easier to experience.
So I find myself in a corner....
Maybe when I see myself from another perspective, I may see that I wasn't in a corner all this time. Maybe I have had everything I ever needed to really be me. Little by little, I teach myself to change my view of this world. I still resist that shifts. I accept that I am stubborn, proud, and greedy, but I refuse to let these feelings confine me into that little box.