I think it can be very important to realise that life is very full of irregularities and detours...
When I was in my early twenties, my father died. And I found that quite a few, if not most, of the people that I had considered "friends" very obviously didn't have the same conception of friendship that I did. And quite a few of them explained to me that despite their words to the contrary beforehand, we weren't such good friends as their words had indicated. (There was a girl that I'd been trying to date that had called and told me that she was there for me if I needed to talk... She then didn't answer her phone for two weeks, because she wanted to wait before she was out of town before telling me to never call her again. Her explanation was that I should have know that it didn't mean anything when she told me that, because it was just something that people said and it didn't really mean anything in the first place (I tend not to read phatic communication very well.) She also explained to me that I should have known that it didn't really mean anything when she told me we were friends, and I should have known this because we weren't friends to begin with. And said that she'd only been pretending to be my friend because she "didn't want to seem like a b****h".) Which is probably just an extended way of saying that quite often, there's quite a bit of one's life that one can't control.
I couldn't keep my father from dying. I couldn't keep the woman from lying. There was very little that I could do about the situation to change most of what happened. And this can be read in a couple of different ways. It could either be considered extremely frustrating (due to my lack of control) or it could be considered extremely liberating (Have you ever read any Milan Kundera? He talks about this a bit in his The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Our powerlessness can be frustrating or liberating. Why liberating? Because it absolves us of responsibility.) I think there's a reason that a lot of the 12 step programs use the serenity prayer. You can drive yourself crazy trying to control what you have no control over. It's a much better idea to focus on what you can control. (As to how one tells the difference, uhhhh, I'd have to let someone else take a swipe at that.)
One thing I did learn from the situation, though, was to set my own boundaries. The one person I live with, day in and day out, is myself. I spent a good chunk of my early twenties letting other people treat me in ways that I didn't like being treated and then blaming me for their behavior (I was too uptight or too judgmental or expected too much from people, etc.) And rather than resorting to some sort of overarching standard (they're crappy people, etc.), learned that the world is large enough that I don't need to live with these people. Does this make me selfish or standoffish or something along those lines? Maybe... Do I necessarily care? Probably not... It makes me a happier person. I had a similar conversation with an acquaintance once whose husband had left her a month after her daughter from a first marriage was killed in a car accident (this sort of thing was not what he signed up for when he got married, he said. She expected too much from people. I told her that it was her fault for using boilerplate vows. He had, after all, said that they were married till death did them part. If she assumed that the death in the vows referred to one of the two people exchanging vows, that was clearly her misreading. She understands my sense of humor so didn't hit me. The reason I bring this up, though, is to say that it's kind of goofy to say that one expects "too much from people". "People" are different and have different needs and different abilities. She may have expected too much from him, but whether that's a generalisable case is debatable. As someone with the tendencies I have, this is a good chunk of the reason I prefer direct conversation (or pathological honesty, if you will). There's enough room for misunderstanding without precision. Do I expect this directness from other people? Depends on the person. Most of them, not so much. But I am much more comfortable in deciding what works, not for "people", but for me.
It doesn't need to be about what is right or wrong or whatever you'd like. It can just be about what works for you and the people around you. And that's something you need to work out with yourself (and with the people around you should you choose to negotiate that with them.) There isn't necessarily a single answer. But there should be one that works for you. And that's the one for you to find. You're the one that has to live with the answer.
Detours can be fun. They can be scary as all heck. As a basic metaphor for life, the rigid path is an interesting one. In that conceptual space, there's a lot of things going on. You may have to walk the rigid path alone, it can be a narrow path. You might find yourself off of the path with no idea how to get back on. You may end up realising at some point or another that the path you're on is not one that takes you where you want to go (even that the road signs were all misleading in the first place), in which case you might need to find a new one altogether. Regardless, though, it's your walk and you're the one who would need to figure out how/where you want to go. Find the path that works for you.
Which is probably a bit hyperlexic for a post that ultimately doesn't answer the question for you (if only because it's one you probably need to come to for yourself.) Hope it helps anyway. Hang in there...
07 Dec 2009, 10:38 pm
