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Micah June 26th

A Rambling Diatribe on Beliefs and Bad Habits

Over the past week, I have been really busy. Three sets of friends came to visit (meaning 4 trips to and from the airport) and I backed that up with a trip out to DC for business. In the past seven days, I have been to an airport 8 times.

I am tired. Tired to my core. I am wrecked. Which, of course, is the best time to explore that core.

Someone I am just getting to know well commented on two things that seem to hold true about me: 1) I live in a world of absolutes (I am bipolar, guess it fits); and 2) I have a list of tenets that I believe in and are immutable.

My friend Meg, who is probably one of my favorite and most respected writers I know, and I talk a lot about writing styles in terms of style and flow. She tells me often that I always write in terms of conclusions and completeness. I dont write open ended. I dont allow the reader to garner their own interpretations or continue or shape the conversation.

This is not done on purpose. I dont begin writing a post thinking to myself, “Gosh, I know how this starts and ends!” I just start writing. But, lets go back to my other friend who claims I live in absolutes and have tenets. I am going to take Meg’s advice, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Here are my beliefs/tenets:

  • I believe that there is always a right thing to do. We all know what the right thing to do is, we sometimes decide to not do it.
  • I believe that honesty and openness always trumps deceit. That the pain that sometimes goes with being honest is worth more than the avoidance that comes with deceit.
  • I believe that above all respecting yourself and others allows others to respect you.
  • I believe that giving should be done without expectation. Always.
  • I believe that you have to always be the most important person to you. That if you dont put you first, then you will have nothing left to give others.
  • I believe that its always about the person.
  • I believe that how you life your life is a clearer message than telling someone else how to live there’s.
  • I believe change comes from one person convincing one person that difference is good.
  • I believe that the only thing I really own in my reputation.
  • I believe that to make someone happy is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
  • I believe that respect is the greatest gift you can give of yourself.
  • I believe trust is the most fragile gift you can receive.
  • I believe that being the best is a curse, but being the worst is pure torture.
  • I believe that my bad habits will one day be my downfall.

I believe this list has gotten too long, so to summarize:

1) do the right thing. always.

2) be open and honest. always.

3) give. time. respect. knowledge. friendship. expect nothing. always.

4) bad habits. bad. avoid.

Why am I so scared of my bad habits (these are personality traits, like talkative, etc. those could be another list)? And what are they? Yay! another list:

  • I tend to think in terms of “I,” not “we” or “us.”
  • I tend to not see shades of grey.
  • I find asking for help really really really hard.
  • I tend to feel that I can brute force any problem.
  • I tend to worry. a lot. about everything. always.
  • I dont ever relax completely.
  • I am unbelievably loyal.
  • I want everyone to respect me.
  • I want to be the best. I want to win. always.
  • I dont like being a follower in any situation.
  • I like knowing. everything.

If you have been a long time reader of this blog, you will see within those bad habits every failure and mistake that I have experienced. Every one.

No wonder they scare me.

Here is my final struggle. Here, Brad and David, is what I suck at.

My beliefs/tenets exist to make me a better person and a more valuable to the people around me, but my bad habits are endemic to my nature and hard to eliminate or change. Frankly, I dont like it, but dont know if I have the strength to change it.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Im going to bed.

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Micah Add to del.icio.us  Digg This
  • Seesmic video reply from Disqus.
  • Seesmic video reply from Disqus.
  • aaron, thanks for the heartfelt response. Cool to be the first video comment I have ever gotten! I should respond in kind but I am also including this text.

    I didnt mean the post to be morose. First and foremost. I seriously wrote it for myself after talking to a couple people about the fact that I seem to live in a world of absolutes. I wanted to list what those absolutes were. As I did that, I came out of my funk a bit, and I decided to list my bad habits too.

    Turns out I have a few. Interestingly, they seem all sort ways to self-sabotage interpersonal relationships.

    Plus, it turns out that beliefs are easy to have, a bit harder to follow 100% of the time.

    But mostly, in listing all my bad habits, it was easy to see where most of my mistakes are coming from, and I know have knowledge and understanding, and thats the best thing ever.

    Stupid blog. Making me think and self-actualize.
  • Meg
    I'm pretty black and white, too, but with a different kind of upswing at the end. I tend to think I'll prevail over the things I struggle with.

    But ironically, despite your downswing, you likely work harder to make the things you want happen than I do with my happy face emoticons and jolly possibilities. I think either I'm easier on myself -- or I'm scared to imagine a world in which I can't eventually figure my own ass out. Though I don't think it's about fear in the end at all.

    Also, I think loyalty and wanting to know everything aren't necessarily bad things. I get what you're saying about how these things can be tough taken to an extreme, but I think without those elements of your personality, you're less of all the good things you are, too.

    It's so the way -- the flip side or the furthest extent of all our good stuff is always our greatest struggle.

    If I could say one thing to you as someone who has yet to meet you (but we've talked quite a bit, and I've read a lot of your thoughts), it's that you are set up to be very, very successful in relationships if you can take all this knowledge and self-acceptance, and manage to believe that someone will love you in spite of/because of all of this. That, given the sum total of you, you're still a good bet.

    That seems to be what stands in the way for most of us, and I think you're tough enough to get there. And then soft enough to do good things once you are.
  • Meg - specifically about loyalty, and why it was on the "bad habits" list. I tend to become extremely loyal, and become slightly blind to faults, causing eventual pain. In terms of knowing everything, there are just some things that I dont need to want to know. But when I am kept in the dark, I always assume there is a reason (potentially nefarious) and it makes me distrustful.

    But, I also wanted to make sure it was clear that this post wasnt about relationships (other than a clear indication of why I muck them up), but about my morals and belief set. Also, about my mistakes and what causes them.

    I loved writing this post. Self exploration rocks.

    And, I aint no softy. damn it.
  • Alma
    Hi Micah--I read occasionally, but I think this is my first comment. I just made a huge, life-changing decision and am feeling a lot of the same stuff you've expressed here. A lot of your beliefs/tenets are similar to mine, and I think they're great...but it can be really difficult sometimes to hold yourself to those beliefs. Well, maybe not so difficult...just painful. When you've chosen to be a "better" person, it's a constant struggle not to be a hypocrite.

    I'm noticing, as I'm beating myself up, that a lot of the crap I think of as bad habits...welp, it's a matter of perspective. A lot of the things I'm not so proud of are things I need to learn to get past and things that benefitted me in some way in the past. I've felt like I've been learning the same lesson over and over again...but, really, I never learned it in the first place. I thought I did...I convinced myself I did...but I had my blinders on.

    And it's okay...how many times I need to stub my toe on my own crap--because, eventually, I will get it. Eventually, the thing I need to get it will fall in my lap--maybe through my own efforts or completely by chance. I think the key to it all is realizing that the shit we think we already know maybe isn't all that simple.

    No idea if this makes sense...I can't sleep and may just be mumbling.
  • Alma, thanks for the comment. I really like your line "When you've chosen to be a "better" person, it's a constant struggle not to be a hypocrite." I have never heard it articulated so correctly. I strive for dependability, consistency and reliability, but those are not natural, and therefore hard to maintain.
  • This may go down as one of my favorites.
  • leslie - way to set the bar... ;)
  • It's amazing the double-edged sword we often find in the traits that best define us. I applaud you for taking the time to think through them--I think doing that helps to recognize them when you most need to. I think I need to spend some time defining...

    Every year I've watched as things that were once so hard to decide become more cut and dry--more easily decipherable and definable. On the one hand, that makes some basic (and not so basic) choices easier. On the other, it makes me take a harder stance with people where I would once be more forgiving. Like you mentioned, when there's less gray it's harder to see the whole situation sometimes. I try to recognize these times and step away or step back.

    I think that knowledge of this stuff is a huge step toward trying to milk your strengths and step around them when you see them about to get in the way. Consider the "I wish I wasn't about to...I know I'm going to regret this later...maybe I should sleep on it..." scenarios that are almost always worth listening to. The more one thinks through them and is able to build those sensors for them (as you're doing here), the more likely they are to make that good decision and act outside of one's normal self to do the thing you listed first, "the right thing."

    Glad to hear this was a thought exercise when you posted it and that something didn't just go horribly wrong...but I think this'll help prevent that kind of thing in the future. Then again, if something does, like Aaron says, you've got a lot of friends who know who much you care for us. And we're there whenever you need us.
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