No-Name Thread
 

Like little ol' Miss Reese Witherspoon, "I'm jus' tryin' ta matter!" (yeah, that makes me gag.)

I'm finding it difficult to matter. I look around and I see people with all sorts of confidence, plans, road maps, talent, brains, courage, heart, ambition, etc., and I wonder: do they have deep chasms of doubt? Canyons of terror? Do they ever peer into the Great Abyss and see themselves?

And, if they do, is it critical that they never, ever, ever tell? Is part of being 'together' to never admit to fear?

People don't usually want to hear complaints. Unless it is their own.


Can you give more examples? When you look around is it at real people or text? I ask because text is decieving. It is the equivalent to a talking brain in a bottle. The emotions, personality and appearance become secondary when in reality or in our daily lifes it is the first thing that touches us. The thing that binds one person to another.
It isn't the cold intellectual discourse behind shuttered eyelids we don't normally hear day to day.

So I was wondering which perspective you were referring?

it's interesting that you post this now, because i have been thinking about just the same thing a lot recently.

i've always had this secret suspicion that everyone else has this "game plan" that they're following to the letter that will lead them to ultimate success and happiness. no one ever seemed to truly doubt where they were going/what they were doing, and everything seems like sunshine and blue birds for them. thinking like that has the effect of magnifying your own self doubt and robbing you of your confidence. i've always had this feeling like i've just now discovered a new "right" way to live and that i'm always catching up to the crowd.

i've been thinking about things like this more now that i've just gotten out of a long term relationship, probably because of all the self examination that ensues after something like that. oddly enough, despite going through the break up - or maybe because of it - it feels like i'm getting over this line of thinking for the first time in my life. having the benefit of great friends who have opened up to me and taught me to open up to them has shown me that everyone suffers from these fears, whether they want to show it or not. and NOT showing it is a killer, i think. suppression of it, and other emotions, leads to a lot of worse things.

i think that, when applied in a healthy measure, doubt is a good thing. it leads to further introspection and growth, and managing to overcome it and make a decision strengthens the spirit, regardless of the outcome. just my two cents. :)

I liked that part the most :)



@Brianna
One night I looked into the abyss and saw my choice.
I can muddle along the best I can. Or not.


p.s. The abyss is swallowed up by light. Like a great worm hole of light into nothingness. I think I was dying. I almost didn't want to post that Brianna. No one would care or believe it. I just wanted you to know that I agree. Nothing yet everything matters.

Sorry, I've a bad habit of being too vague! I am referring to real people, the ones you see and interact with daily--maybe co-workers, or fellow students, other parents or neighbors, your supervisor(s). I've worked with some people who always acted like they were in on God's Great Plan for Mankind even when they did stupid, unspeakable, disasterous things. I see these kids in class at university-they are so sure of themselves. I feel ridiculous. I feel uneducable. I feel plain silly. Like, whatever it is that I do, it won't matter.

Bottom Line: am i just an unusually fearful quivering mass of green jell-o, or are others just a hell of a lot better at hiding their true feelings?

oh my god *tears *


I can only feel.

You are seeing things from multiple vantage points and I would say that they are either just hiding feelings of insecurity too or that they just plain have thick cow hide as skin.





Seeing things from this vantage point you have can feel vulnerable. Do not let your feeling dictate your self worth. You are more than your intellectual, spiritual awknowlegement.


My son. He sounds so much like you. I've had to teach him to not look in the faces of other people to find worth. To accept other people who maybe less intune or even stupid.

He is teaching himself the guitar. I am a wannabe poet. Something to funnel all that into and make it something beautiful.


When you focus on that instead you'll feel glad you are different?? On a different level that is. Prehaps artistically inclined. Are you an artist?

I wish I could say more but I have to go to work. Yes, there is alot of people who feel like you more often than not.

Maybe you are too young to appreciate Rush but their lyrics keep comming into my mind.

Limelight

Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage.

Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact.

Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem.
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation,
Get on with the fascination,
The real relation,
The underlying theme.

Living in a fisheye lens,
Caught in the camera eye.
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend.

All the world's indeed a stage
And we are merely players:
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage.




I feel lame at times too. Like now trying to help and feeling ineffectual.

There is no need to concern yourself with mattering. And its also ok not to have every freaking minute of your life mapped out fifteen years in advance. Believe me, there is a lot to be said for not locking yourself down inside a flow chart. Live your life however you want to - the only person you have to explain yourself to is you.

We all have moments -or even periods- where it feels like we missed the train. It'll pass. Don't fight it - accept it and let it run its course. Later, when your strength returns, use it as motivation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you that a shot of tequila won't fix.

Seriously, though - we've all pulled over at some point and had a look into the abyss hoping somebody or something would tell us where the hell we were or which way we were supposed to go while we scratching our head's looking at everyone else pass by who seem never to have had a doubt in their entire lives. Bullshit. Everyone has an appointment with the abyss sooner or later.

Better to stare into an abyss than out of one. You're just paying a toll, nothing more. See you on the highway soon - if you see me pulled over, toss me a beer.

I love Rush :) You've helped me, sky. Any time someone posts something heartfelt, it helps. thanks. I'm off to school where all the beautiful 20-somethings live and god, to be 20 again!

beestie--YOU seem especially like one with his shit together. I'll toss you a cold one anytime.

If you only knew, Brianna.

I think I understand your question, Brianna.

I'm the kind of person who just kind of goes with the flow in life. I've planned nothing. I got the job I'm in because I started temping here to make some cash, and then they offered me a job. Then I moved up through the ranks, totally going with the flow. When I think about my career's future, it scares the crap out of me, so I don't think about it much. Probably not the most mature thing to do, but I'm gainfully employed, so why not? It's comfortable here, even if I'm not on a rocket shooting up the ladder. Honestly, I'll probably be stuck in middle management for the rest of my life.

In my personal life, I met this really cool woman many years ago, and it was very easy to hang out with her. So I just kept doing that, and pretty soon we ended up married. One terrifying decision I had to make was when she wanted to have kids, and I was still unsure. But she slowly worked on me, and then I was finally ready. That's probably the hardest choice I made in my life. At the time, I actually made the comment to a friend that making the decision to have kids was kind of like building up the nerve to jump off a high diving board into a pool you know is cold. The reason I was afraid was that I knew the kids would change everything, but I didn't know what it would be like. Making that choice is exactly the kind of choice I hate to make. Of course, I now have to make the obligatory, but true, comment that I'm glad I did it.

My whole life is basically about not making any of those important life changing decisions. It's working out for me. Over my life, I've made a bunch of small incremental decisions that have led to where I am now, and I'm comfortable here. If I was at a point in life where I wasn't comfortable, I'd be forced to start making some real life changing decisions, and I wouldn't like it. But I would do it.

I'm not sure how this applies to you, but you have been making a lot of changes in your life lately, and the future is probably this big scary blank slate. Of course you are unsure.

Also, remember that a lot of those people with all the confidence really have no business being so confident. Think of George Bush. :)

It's excellent to have courage, heart and ambition. Anybody who has them all the time is either fronting or not paying attention.

As for plans, they're great to have...as long as they are achievable, don't have too far distant a planning horizon and are not set in concrete. As Von Motlke said, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." If circumstance requires you to modify your plans, you can't score that as a defeat. Or you'll feel defeated a lot...which is hard on the "courage, heart and ambition" department.

Having prioritized goals is more important than having detailed plans. Being willing to modify those priorities is important too.

Not having doubt would put one in that "not paying attention" category I mentioned above.

But to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, I would think that the only thing worse than peering into the Abyss and seeing yourself would be peering into it and not seeing yourself.

Yeah, I've been there.

Oh wait, no, I still am.

Ultimately you have to convince yourself that all the other turkeys are putting up fronts. If they aren't worried they're either stupid or not paying attention, like Maggie said.

The "front" is the thing, as Stevedallas said.
Keep your wits, and look past the facade your asshole coworkers play their drama with.
(i don't know why I'm posting here, I don't know you;
... but you're where all compassionate, compatible, and conscientious human beings should be regarding)

i agree. could you imagine going through your life being convinced that you had everything figured out 100% and then coming upon the realization that you don't (and no one does, i don't care who they are) at some point you consider "too late"? that's when you hear about people jumping off of bridges because they lose their jobs or shooting a cheating lover. there is nothing more dangerous than rigid thinking, and doubt is one of the things that keeps us flexible.

i'd go as far to say that keeping an open mind, being open to change and the idea that the way you're doing things is "wrong" is one of the things that leads us to ultimate happiness, because it keeps us searching. dunno. i hope my babbling helps. :)

There's a plan? Where was I when they passed out the plan? I've been working off of Vonnegut's philosophy "I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all..."

I hope this is relevant to your topic, Brianna, but this is what it made me think of: I am plagued by an agonizing level of constant self-doubt, but it drives me to always improve, because I never feel good enough, to me. I don't know if other people percieve this - I don't try to hide it, but I'm not prone to vocal complaints either.

For example, in my work as a drummer people seem to regard me as some kind of cracker-jack, but, to me, one bad gig (that I percieved as bad) and I am almost ready to just give up and admit that I am clumsy and uncoordinated and I will never ever be even a decent drummer. Then, as it turns out, the gig was recieved as great, or the problem with the gig was percieved as having to do with the soundman or something beyond my control. I shouldn't be so swayed by the opinions of others, but in these sore ares, I have to admit that I am.

My way of dealing with my self-doubt is that I use it as a tool to drive me to get better, hence I am a perfectionist, hence people percive me as doing a good job, while I don't necesarily agree. What I may be able to achieve and what I am afraid I won't be able to achieve are so closely tied together, and I am very open about this, with myself, and have no problem admitting it.

I would almost venture to say that your level of self-doubt is an indicator of your ability to achieve. I hope this is meaningful, or has something to do with what you were thinking about.

Very well said.

Yeah I think he's got it together too.

"its only when you've lost everything that you're truely free to do anything" - Tyler Durton

its a lot better to see the bottom and look forward to the top, than to reach the top and fear the bottom.

everyone has moments of doubt and self questioning. once you know this, you can see it in peoples eyes and realise that the ones you thought were following their plan, are just putting one foot in front of the other and not looking around to see where they are.

instead of thinking "am i good enough?", "wheres my place in this world?" try to think "i will be good enough", "i will carve my path through this world".

if you dont want to try and do everything in your power, you can still be happy looking around and not asking questions. you'll be surprised how much more in life you can see without asking what everything is around you, but by just looking at it.

you'll be ok brianna. you matter to me :heart-on:

Most of the people I work with are like that. They feel they're right on track, but when I listen to them talk, I come to the realization they are in parallel ruts. Everyone knows the only difference between a rut and a grave is the length. Even the few that know they're in a rut, are afraid to climb out because it's comfy, familiar and safe.

If they only knew......

Of the people that do that, 99% are in for a rude awakening and many of them are so inflexible they simply crumble. Contingency plans or going with the flow could save a lot of heartache.
Besides, planning far ahead, you'll probably miss a lot of fun along the way. Of course in you spend all of your time following the fun, when it stops or you can't cut it anymore, you have to find new ways to fill your time. Thanks, internet. ;)

This is what I mean when I talk about "posturing". The level of posturing rises exponentially with the level of success. At my University job, in a city near you, bri ;), the Grandstanding was outrageous. Here in the Silicon Valley, the software engineers that are primadonnas are a royal pain in the ass at work.

Outside of work, some of my best friends are always grandstanding and posturing all the time and I just don't want any part of that anymore. It's too exhausting. Actually, in the 2000 Internet bubble, I had more stock-option success than these friends, and then started and sold my own company. Still these friends try to out do me. This is when I fantacize about being a different person of a different gender, and avoiding the whole silicon-valley-male posturing thing. Where is my violet eyeshadow? I'm sure it's here somewhere......

Part II of this is story is that today I was fired by my manager at my job as a contractor after three months, but at the same time hired by my new manager at the same company. I have another 8 weeks of work to prove myself to be hired as a full-time employee.

As you know Bri, I have had success in my career. But, my field is really young and all the over-50-yo software engineers that I know are not confident in their job situations.

My new manager has been a loyal supporter of mine for a long time and he is about my age. So this will probably turn into a FT job in two months. But, it seems to me like it gets harder and harder as you get older.

And even with getting hired again right away, the rejection is just brutal.

Brianna, look at all the support you have gotten here and in your other thread about the "mad" professor. People CAN be on your side, you know. I think you have a bad case of comparing your insides with other people's outsides. And if you're using 20 year old college kids as a measuring stick - well...

I used to have a friend who would say, "I imagine many people look at me and consider my life a resounding failure. But I know what I have been up against. I know the obstacles that I've had to overcome. I'd like to see the folks who consider me a "failure" do half as well as I have with the cards life has dealt me. In MY eyes, I'm a resounding success!"

He was right, too. I knew a little of his story, and he was right.

Maybe there are people "out there" who have never had to stare into the "abyss." Its certainly possible. I wouldn't know. I do know that I have had to face and am still facing my own bleak "3:00am of the human soul."

My life has not gone anything like the way I once thought it would. I've had many nights when I fell asleep praying that I would die, and woke up in the morning feeling horribly disappointed.

I often wonder why the hell I bother to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I should have been dead three times over by now, but still I'm alive. I can look at this luck of mine as sheer chance or I can look at it as being a sign that I'm here for some purpose.

I can't prove either theory, so I choose to think that I have survived this long for a reason. You have, too. You have been one of those who gets to go out on the further edge of human experience and report back to others what it was like out there and how to survive the trip.

To compare yourself with a callow 20 year old kid is a travesty and you know it. You are a pathfinder and a strong woman. Never think otherwise.

Some things I learned about the people in one of my classes: they don't remember when Star Wars came out, they don't remember Reagan being President, they don't remember when MTV was first broadcast. Just call me "Grandpa" I guess.

I think the simplest way to answer this is thus:

If you don't have insecurities, and are totally confident and happy with yourself, you don't have any incentive to *become* anything but a no-name. Anyone competitive enough to 'make it' in, for example, acting, has any number of insecurities that have led them to that point.

I love the way you say things sometimes, Mari.

It's funny also that last year, the day before Bri's last court appearance, I posted on her thread about my jail time and how I survived that, including a pic of me in the orange jump suit (well not really me....but...) In February after my last court appearance, the first person I called was Brianna. And she was of course supportive and understanding for me. She's really wonderful.

You two are my misery-loves-company friends. We should have a girls-night-out and burn-in-effagy the men that have hurt us, our own little "burning man", ha! A flaming voodoo doll.

Bri - or "hey you hot chick" as i prefer to call you: if you think that anyone you meet has a damn clue about life then they are really good actors or you are having an especially gullible day... OR they could be like i was 6 months ago (or so) when we were talking offline. i was actually giving you advice. yep - me. i didn't claim to have it all figured out, but i was 98% sure about 99% of things. that is when life steps in just laughing and slapping its knee barely holding in the finger pointing - "HAHAHA look at that dumb MFer! he thinks he's got a clue - let's turn his life upside down..."

nobody really knows what is going on. today may be complete crap filled with uncertainty - and you may wake to find that life is changed in some miraculous way. OR today may be beautiful - just another glorious day crammed with scrumdidliumpsuous moments sandwiched between identically perfect days - BUT oh wait you wake up to find divorce papers on the nightstand. time to redefine who you are and what you believe.

it's all a choice. we can get up and "be happy" knowing that we're going to get kicked from time to time as a matter of course. or we can be timid and afraid and completely ignore the beautiful moments that fill 63% of our lives because we're living in fear of the other 37% of life.

me? i'm gonna choose another beer. or 3. i'm going to get up early - coach 12 4-6 year olds on the soccer field and then I may go buy a kayak. today i got a wild itch to find out if I could make it across Lake Pleasant in one peace - in a kayak. nope, i've never even touched one before. life is an adventure right?

The end of last week was really tough at work. I am taking this week off before starting my new gig at the same company. It's a tough place to work; it's an all-star company with lots of successful people.

Even though my career has been successful, I'm still insecure and fragile. When the SVP gave me the negative feedback from my previous manager, tears came to my eyes. I was able to explain to him how the company failed me in several ways and he agreed with me. But, I could not do the strong male thing, I acted more like Terry Hatcher, fragile and hurt.

My new manager took a walk with me to say that he really wanted me on his team. He said that we all have projects that managers are disappointed about for whatever reasons, so it wasn't a strike against me. And it looked to him like my last project was successful anyway.

My feelings must have made an impression. Later that day, the CEO stopped by and said that he was glad to hear of my new position in the new group where the company can benefit from my experience. One of the marketing guys stopped by to say similar things. This was good; I'm someone who needs to feel the love.

Since I joined in January, the plan was for me to do a project for one manager and shift over to the other manager. Everyone agreed to this months ago. I got the feeling the first manager (too young at 27 yo) was giving me a parting shot with the negative feedback.

The new manager is more my age and the project is stuff I've been doing for the last 9 years. My new concern is that everyone expects me to be good at this new job and the expectations are very high. I could do a great job and people could be disappointed it wasn't a greater job. I'll always find something to worry about.

So... you'll always be prepared for whatever gets thrown at you. (This is a positive spin developed out of necesity by a chronic worrier and perfectionist. I don't think this aspect of my personality is going away, I accept it and use it to the best advantage I can.) Good luck in your new project, it sounds like you'll do just fine. People who are their own worst critic can excel if they aren't crippled by self doubt. It's a fine line, but what choice do you have?

The person who I best know to be able to relate to this and to talk from the heart honestly, well the cellar banned him after one look.

so it goes.

His loss.

Bri,
I was thinking of something I was going through and remembered this thread. A while back I had just experienced that great gulf in humanity.In that cold detached lofty place called human awareness. Feeling the coldness of being inside this vessel and wanting somekind of warmth.
Warmth of something which was eluding me but I didn't know what. I ended up pondering different reasons that are better suited for a philosphy thread so I won't bore anyone with them here.

I have to remind myself too that during these times we are usually under alot of stress or our bodys are not well in some way.That is what I wanted to say. You've been working hard and that has taken a toll. Summer is comming and there will be lots of good energy in the air.
I always feel more connected with warmer air.
Well it does for me anyway.

I always feel better when the sun shines :) I really do.

I've decided that I take myself far too seriously in many regards and not serious enough in matters that really...uh, matter. I vaklempt endlessly about whether some jerk likes me or not (when how does that matter or affect my life in any real way?) yet I am v. offhand and causal about my recovery life. This is backwards, no?

My first step in changing this up is to eat way, waaaay better, sleep well (avoid paranoid, traumatized fantasies right before sleep) get a bit of recovery-speak from somewhere (god, I hate those people, but maybe could go to Online Recovery community and not have to actually be in their presence?) and read recovery material on daily basis. Maybe, just maybe, I might BEGIN to recover. All my angst is merely addiction-based bullshit and I need to get over it before I turn 80.

Anyway--next time anyone feels like looking into the abyss--just don't. have a cuppa instead and think about something else. ANYTHING else.

I watched INTERVENTION last night and it ripped my heart out. God, addicts can be a PITA.

recovery speak online? If I could butt in I would recomend music or witty quotes or anything else than listening to a bunch of condecension or worse, that 'one up manship' in the complaints department. I never ever ever do the group pity me thing because it just seems like an extention of that need based addiction. Am I right? I mean really. It's a prop right?

I like your first thoughts. Get better sleep and if the body is ill fix it and rest into the fact it might take a month. Listen to good music and yes soalk up that sun!

Well...maybe I'll just re-read Stuart Smalley's book: I'M GOOD ENOUGH, I'M SMART ENOUGH AND DOGGONE IT! PEOPLE LIKE ME! ;)