-I never get any work done-
It feels this way, and I've been fired because of it. At the same time I can look back at a great portfolio of writing, presentations, and milestones I've nailed. One thing that I never give myself credit for is the work I do that's not on paper or part of release materials. People who work on projects with me appreciate the context I set, my commitment to establishing clear goals, and the fun I bring to projects. I'm a leader, which gives me the slippery task of supporting others and making sure connections are made. Those connections aren't listed or explicit components of the project, they're the glue which brought it together and the nimbus of excellence that makes it shine. It ain't listed in the specs, but it's damn fine work none the less.
-I'm a slave to distraction: my chat, my hobbies, and the World-Wide-Data-Hose-
At my heart I'm a communicator and a researcher. I absorb information, process it internally, and pass it along to others. It's a valuable skill for professionals, but I'm so often obsessed with my product. It takes time to reach positions where abstract skills are needed. Hell, I wouldn't lean on the opinions of my 19 year old self either. Now I'm at a point where I've got an actual store of knowledge that's valuable. I love listening to other people, and I love brainstorming on how to approach a project from a strategic perspective. I never wanted to be a carpenter or a coder, but I demand only my tangible work gets counted. Well that is useful stuff, but communication and abstract reasoning skills always get top billing on the jobs I'm most excited by...nobody is asking me to make widgets anyway, so how about I stop trying to pretend I should?
-I'm not in shape-
Well it turns out this stings because it puts me face to face with my humanity. It's not that nobody is in shape, but LOTS of people want to be in shape and aren't. My impulse is to call myself a norm and walk away disgruntled. It's HARD to work out. It hurts the body and the resistance is internal. Bodies and minds resist exercise, and I've got both. When I drop other things in my life: lovers, travel, work, and my bandoleer of friends I manage to get into shape. It feels good when I do that, but I also miss out on those other priorities in life... more on this later.
-I don't follow my schedule-
It's hard to do the same thing over and over for me, and it's hard to stick to a plan and remain a creative and adaptive absorber of life. I feel like there's something deeper, some avoidance rooted in my attitude from childhood, but there's also a slew of rich and exciting and damned useful experiences I've garnered from being distractable. I just ain't a Legume Comptroler, and I don't want to be one neither.
-I do drugs even when I don't want to-
Booze, cigarettes, and other exotics have been a part of my life since I was 14. I've got a LOT of pain buried in there, and I've been committed to being open and vulnerable most of my life in the face of that. Intoxicants have been a place for me to stretch out and touch both deeply wounded and actively engaged at the same time. The result is not perfect, but it's a full and valid way of being.
-I'm not a superhero-
This last is the hardest pill to swallow. I've always expected myself to contain every great trait of the people I see around me. My father works hard, so I must be a hard worker even if I won't take on his limited social life and lack of creative passions. My brother is able to focus on work, but his one-dimensional work doesn't interest me at all. My wife works out all the time, but she has no idea where Uganda is and she envies both my knowledge base and my ability to communicate it to others ~well it took time to do and learn those things, time that wasn't spent in the gym.
It's been a blind spot in my perspective, my lack of compassion for myself for not being everything at all times. So often, my coaches ask me what it would mean to me if I was normal and it throws me, "I'd be a failure" I think to myself. And so fine, I'm an eccentric fellah, just like I planned. But I never signed on for superhero status, so why do I beat on myself for being merely human? It's a good thing, shooting for greatness, but that's a full time task too. I suppose I know some superheroes, but honestly, they're not whimsical eccentrics with cozy hearts, it just ain't in the job description.
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