Maximizing the good while minimizing the bad

Post Reply New Topic

Everyone has problems, and in life no one gets off "scot free" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scot-free , no matter how good their life seems to be on the surface. Yet the idea that being autistic has prevented me from reaching my full potential has been troubling me a lot lately, many of the people I know (I don't really have any friends) are doctors, engineers, pilots and dentists, they all live in huge houses have big happy families and theirs, as well as their children futures are financially secure. All of these people are followers my professed religion (which is irrelevant, suffice it to say that one member lost the election to Obama), I have always struggled with my beliefs and a couple of years ago I tried out atheism for a while but that did not work for me either, but I digress, my point is that in spite of being at least as smart, if not smarter than any of these people (we treat each other as equals, most of the time), yet I have absolutely no hope of ever having a career, at least in the conventional sense. I mean I bag groceries for tips and I stock shelves at night, the only reason I live a comfortable life is due to being retired military (which was technically a "career" but at the very least my service means very little to an employer who is looking for an individual with a very narrow and specific skill set), but being a bagger (begger?) is downright humiliating, customers have absolutely zero obligation to tip anything, a fact which is not lost on a fair number of customers.

My friends do not understand why, if I am so intelligent, I am not pursuing an advanced degree, I try to tell them that I am HFA/Asperger's, but alas the information seems to only fall on deaf or ignorant ears. The funny thing is, is that I am actually quite good at both jobs, and am told as much on a frequent basis, obviously because I am autistic. What is even more funny is how many of them are insanely jealous of my Honda CBR250R and my highly modified 88 Jeep Cherokee, perhaps even secretly of how I earn a living, so if my life is so great, why then am I jealous of their high stress jobs, big houses and gas swilling pickup trucks?

I am quite certain that this is a common theme among the members of this forum, so how do you cope with your "unrealized potential"? Or the perhaps negative reaction people have towards you when they lack an understanding of what it means to be autistic? I know that I am supposed to simply ignore these sorts of reactions however, this is easier said then done.

"Unrealized potential" is one of those phrases that annoy me when used by one person to describe another, while knowing very little about who they really are. It is judgmental, and relativistic--they are judging you according to their own yardstick of "success", which can be defined in so many ways I won't even try to here.

Your "jealousy" of what they have is, I think, a reflection of what society tells you you are "supposed to" want, have, attain, etc. It's a matter of being influenced by what others are saying to you.

The question here is: do you, YOURSELF, want to go further than you have? Do you feel that the effort that would take would be worth the associated stresses? Or, can you look at your life and say, honestly, "I'm doing okay here"? The answer to that would answer question #1. Only you can judge what is "unrealized potential", no one else. You have a job, and make a living--you are not asking for handouts. Your life is no one else's business.

Question #2: some people will simply never get it. If they refuse to even try to understand, repeating yourself until you are blue in the face will not help. If they bring it up again, say "I have tried to explain this before, but you can't seem to understand the concept of HFA/Asperger's. Perhaps this resource will explain it better [refer them to a book or website]." Then, the subject is closed. Period.

Hope that helped. It's close to 2am here and I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but I felt compelled to at least try to answer. People who butt in to other's lives and claim to be "helping" really p**s me off.

The unlived life (the 'what if') is not worth examining. You've got your roll of quarters to spend. Forget the silver dollars you'll never see.

The other question I now ask myself, now that I discovered last year that I am AS is what would have happened if they did hire me, I shudder to think because as I look back on all of the difficulties I had while I was in the military (I'm talking things which ought to have ended my career) I realize that my assumption that the reason I did not fare better then I did was not because I did not try hard enough to do a better job but rather because of being Autistic.