Analyze This!
I woke up this morning not with a chip but a whole boulder on my shoulder... A boulder on my shoulder!
And I almost let it get the best of me too. It's easy to get bent out of shape when you have a boulder on your shoulder...
Being without my phone (more or less) has actually been quite enjoyable. It has restricted a great deal of the access that anyone who had my number or my e-mail address(es), had to me. It' brought me to the not-so-shocking conclusion that I enjoy my own company. Maybe too much! I like alone time. I like peace and quiet. I like to be left alone to my own thoughts. There was a time when I resisted that. I believed that being alone all the time made me boring. But it was during those times in college where I learned to enjoy my own company and make the most of my me time.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that "alone time" only serves to strengthen that not-so-happy habit of living in my head. For a person who can be amicable and social I can quickly transform into a hermit. I battle with occasional bouts of being anti-social. Even those closest to me can become estranged to my life in a matter of moments.
I thought about why that might be this morning as I was chiseling away at and grinding up the boulder. So far the only explanation I have is selfishness at the expense of "self-preservation". In an effort to preserve myself I become extremely selfish. My interactions with other people become magnified and I slowly start to feel violated and then *snaps* just like that I detach myself from everything and everyone except for maybe God. And even then He makes it plain that detachment won't fix the way I feel...
With all the technology we have access to (which by the way all of my technology has some major issue preventing it from fully functioning...but I digress) it is easy for people to have access to us. Whether through calls, texts, emails, or social media (fb, twitter, etc). People can usually reach you wherever you are during the day via one of those methods. And while I can't speak for anyone else, for me, that can sometimes be overwhelming, especially when I'm just now learning to say "no". So having the ability to shut down and/or limit that access people have to you all of a sudden, can feel like a pleasant change.
Unfortunately, for me I have fooled myself into thinking that I can survive on my own, without the help of anyone else. That's a lie. A lie I now have to unlearn. As a result of that lie that I have allowed to take root in me, my tolerance level for social interaction can be extremely low. It made cutting people off, or walking away from a good thing (that just needed a little more patience and perseverance to work) easy.
To be open-book, diary entry, journal writing, honest with you, that's an issue I'm trying to work through. If all of a sudden I feel like I'm sharing too much and that it's to no avail, I'll stop sharing everything. When I say everything I mean everything; my time, my thoughts and my feelings included. Hence shutting down.
It's not a good habit. I acknowledge that and I'm making changes. I cannot really say when that started or if it is just an outgrowth of what can be dubbed an extremist personality type.
But whatever the case, it doesn't have to be as it always was, or how its been for however long. Hope gives us the ability and the motivation we need to change.
I have hope! Change that. And Analyze this!
Autumn Blessings to you Pilgrims!
Thoughts of love and light from my heart to yours...
-CM