But was I today?

By Beau on January 4, 2005 4:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (440)

It's gratifying to know that other people can relate to my perpetual New Years resolution of being better. I've never been one to lead in saying or doing things and in fact, the hallmark failing of my Myers-Briggs personality type, if you go for that sorta thing, is a constant fear of failure and trying to convince oneself that what one says and does is actually correct. That is, without question, me. I spend great quantities of time and effort to try to be right and spend even more time and effort trying to convince myself I am while all the while holding firm to the idea that I could very well be wrong. I am nothing short of a perfect Gemini. But then again, what is 'right'. Right? I'm nothing if not always uncomfortable, at least a little, in most of my day. More so at work, but even when I'm home, even when I'm home alone, I question everything I do from a stand point of it being right for me. And this all ties back into being better.

My goal then is to be better and feel right about it which, depending on whose definition of 'right' we're considering, could be perplexing, contradictory, unachievable, or wrong, all together. Is right for me being selfish? As a care-giving, avoider, non-confrontational personality type, the whole idea of putting myself and my needs first seems selfish and childish however that lack of boundary is more often then not, troublesome and a dead-end avenue to anxiety, stress, and a whole lotta tsoris. So I try to be better about it and keep it on a short leash. As I grow older and wearier of the Whole Thing in general, this seems to become easier. Am I on a path to curmudgeondom? Maybe, who knows? I recognize I need to have more humor and laughter in my life and approach things from a humorous point of view; that in laughing the troubles of the day away, one does tend to live longer, happier, and have more people who like to be around them and that seems like an admirable goal for myself, just in general.

So being better is tough and after reading back through my blog entries for last year which is really the only record of the past year I have, sadly, I didn't find much. Of course it may just be the small ways in which I was better didn't make for good blog fodder but even so, it would have been nice to have alluded to it somehow, somewhere. I can't even cull up a "best of..." list of books, movies, music, or events and that sort of puts me off a bit too. So I'm now coming from a place of being better in small ways and thinking that recognizing my betters on a day to day basis might be good for the soul. Also, to make them a bit more bloggable which entails using exciting adjectives, embellishment, and exaggerations where necessary. Is it right? Who knows? Haven't I been making a case for how pathologically indecisive I am? Hello?

My question then for today is: was I better than the day before and if so, how? At first I would say no; there was nothing in my day that I would say made me better. Work has crazy voodoo shit going on and I'm finding my increased responsibility quite taxing and stressful (thus I'm up with insomnia at 3am writing about it). I hardly ever feel better about having to call someone out or redirect their behavior for the betterment of the job however that is part of the work and in doing it I'm fulfilling the role assigned. But as a person who, as I've said, hates confrontation most of all, it's just never a situation I come away from feeling better about. Except that my E. Roosevelt motto, "You must do the thing you think you can not do" has been fulfilled. I took the risk, gagged the hand-ringing Mealy Mouth, and charged forth. I'm can't sleep because of it, but I did it, none the less. But as I thought over my day, with all the minutes spread out for intimate review, I realized that as Jeff and I were sitting on the couch this evening, just passing the time together, I got up to get something and just wanted to kiss him and so I did. Just a few nice, good kisses and that was it. And that made me feel that I was being better by embracing the moment and feeling and just doing something about it instead of wishing I had. It's just a tiny, tiny fraction of my whole day but in that one thing, I wasbetter, and I think more then anything, that counts a whole lot and is what my idea of being better is all about. Of course I could go on to say how I wasn't in the mood but let Jeff ravage me anyway with dirty monkey love when we went to bed and that would be me being MUCH better (for both us, admittedly), but I'm going to focus on the Hallmark-nature of the stolen kisses and leave the wholesome image of that as I finish this ramble.

So the question posed then for anyone and everyone, where you better today, in some small way? Think about it.