Monthly Archives: April 2016

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Being right 

Like most people I like to be right. There’s just an inherent smug feeling of satisfaction knowing that fact agrees with your assertion. It’s a great feeling. But as much as I like being right, there are times when I wish I wasn’t. It’s not fun to see the huge possibility of a negative outcome and then watch it happen. I guess it’s in those circumstances that I actually wish I was wrong and was pleasantly surprised instead. But I think that’s the ebb and flow of life in general. There are good surprises and then some not so great ones. But every now and again it’s not a bad thing to be wrong. 

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The light/Open your eyes

This song has been on repeat for the past few days. I was first introduced to this gem through the song by Common. I knew it wasn’t the original and after some digging I found the actual song. I love the old school groovy feel that it has. John Legend also did a great rendition of this one as well. There’s nothing like a timeless song that has been reinvented and remixed into multiple songs because it’s so good. Where are the songs like that today?

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Gym goals 

About a month or so ago I made the decision to join a gym. A friend of mine had invited me to join a 3 month challenge that involved making healthier food choices and an exercise regimen. So, being the all or nothing person that I am, I decided that the best way to be consistent was to go to a gym for my workouts. I’ve been fairly consistent for the last month and am starting to see the results. But it’s still not fun to me. I see people who enjoy their workouts and talk about how great it was but that’s still not my experience. Long story short, I’m there because I need to be–not because I woke up at 4:30am excited to get a great workout in. That’s the great thing about being a responsible adult. You end up doing things because you know that you’ll be happy you did in a few years or even decades even if you hate it at the moment. The nice thing is that it’s starting to get easier to wake up and I’m not bribing myself to get out of bed and go. It’s becoming more of a routine. And maybe I’ll actually start to like it. That would be great. 

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The tendency to overthink 

Recently I had a very long conversation with a friend of mine regarding a similar experience we were having. Don’t get my wrong, I’m glad that I chose my particular career path. Social work/counseling is a good fit for my personality and I genuinely enjoy helping others. However, one sees things in a totally different light when you’ve studied human interactions and behaviors from an academic point of view. When you’ve met with hundreds and talked at length about their personal challenges and relationship woes. The way you perceive the world around you changes when perfect strangers feel comfortable walking up to you and sharing details about the personal life and current problem because (apparently) you have the “trust me I’m a therapist/safe person” face. One thing my friend and I discussed was how hard (somewhat impossible) it is to separate professional knowledge from actual emotion in personal relationships. As a therapist you question everything. One’s hidden motives, past history, emotions, and body language to come to a conclusion on the best course of action to help them. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to take anything at face value in personal relationships and the tendency can be to overthink. If overthinking was a professional sport, I would be a pro. I love connecting the dots and making sense of complicated and complex information. It’s a great professional skill to have, but using a professional skill for personal use definitely has a downside. I think it comes down to taking it a day at a time and becoming okay with not knowing all the information up front. Which, by the way, can be very frustrating but also necessary to cultivate a healthy balance. 

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Single and supportive 

Like many people, I often find myself annoyed when I’m added to groups on social media without my consent. Usually it’s a subject matter I’m not particularly interested in and serves no real purpose to my daily life. Not too long ago I saw a post from one of the groups that I had been inadvertently added to. The group was specifically for single women and someone apparently thought that I could benefit in some way from the content. Let me make a quick side note. There are some people who flaunt their singleness like a badge of honor telling any and everyone how happy they are to not be “tied down” to another person. Good for them but it’s not my thing. But I digress. In the group one of the administrators had posed a question asking how the members in the group were doing in their current state of singleness. The typical responses were extremely positive with respondents saying that they were having the best times of their life and that they were working on themselves and actively pursuing their spiritual path. However, one post from a member stood out in stark contrast to the others. This lady kept it 100 and basically said that the single life (for her) sucked and that it was lonely. Almost immediately the replies from other members started coming in. They chastised her for being lonely and said that she needed more prayer, and church attendance because something was wrong with her. The pettiness came out full force with accusations of bringing the group down and “focusing on the negative.” It was sad that the supposed purpose of the group was to be supportive of single women but quickly became a group of bullies after someone honestly shared how they were feeling. I don’t know what the moral of this story is but I’ll just say that if you join a support group just first make sure they are actually supportive. Or, develop a support system of real people who won’t jump down your throat when you’re honest about your feelings.