Being Me

“Everything in moderation, even moderation” –Oscar Wilde

Good quote. It is especially weighty when put into the context of team and identity. The greater good of the team, community, group, or collective is always superior to the need of the one. This truth must be taken in moderation. This truth is empirical so long as I don’t completely sacrifice myself to ‘better’ the team. the best analogy I can come up with is snow. 

Snow is made up of trillions upon trillions of tiny snowflakes. These flakes all work together to become a beautiful, serene, blanket of white fluffy powder. I especially like snow when it is in the mountains and not on the roads. All of these flakes work together to not be individual snowflakes, but instead a mound of snow to ski on, snowboard, sled, snowmen, snowballs, and car accidents. It is the collective power of snowflakes working together to become this powerful snow that can take lives or insulate the winter wheat. Snowflakes must work together. However, never does one snowflake have to give up the beautiful ornate design it has to be a part of the collective. The design of this flake is never placed at a higher importance than the group, however, it is still existent from the moment it forms as a frosty snowflake to the moment it melts into a puddle. The flake has a purpose and identity that is necessary for the collective’s success. 

I have a purpose and an identity that is necessary for my team’s success. I had given up my identity, buried it in a bucket somewhere, shoved it in a closet, and ignored it. However, it was waiting for me. 

I’ve been cleaning out my closets. Emptying my buckets. Now I am who I am and I am going to be me, unapologetically. 

For the sake of the team, 

My friends, 

My family,

And everyone I get to be with.

How much of your identity have you given up for those you love? Have you given up too much or too little?

Being me,

–JT

All Things to All People

Last post I talked about my natural skill of analyzation and how I am working to not substitute my ability to analyze for being faithful. However, it is so dang hard not to try and help everyone through analyzing. I want to analyze everything. Collect all the information, make decisions, help others make decisions, and be right about all of it. It is so hard to stop myself. I just get so much joy from it all. 

It makes sense to do something I get energy and joy from. I have a hard time keeping it to a tame level. Staying out of business I don’t belong in. Though, I have to remember how I got to where I was. I did not land there by actively making decisions from an unhealthy motive. I was making unhealthy decisions about myself and others because of a long series of unhealthy decisions I made.

The irony, I landed in an unhealthy place because I made too many unhealthy decisions originally based on healthy motives.

I made the decision, the minute assumption, my ability to analyze was necessary for all people to use. Not only my ability to analyze; but, me analyzing. I with a capital E-Y-E, — I — decided, — I — had to analyze for everyone else and fill in all the gaps. For the good of everyone else — I — took on more than I should have and buried myself in tasks and details which were unhealthy for me to be buried in.

Now I am in a place where I see my mistake, misaligned assumption. I see the lie I bought into. I am making moves to not be buried in those details and bonded to this lie. 

What small lie are you buying into?

In Truth,

–JT

Decentralization

When I am in a situation where I need to make a decision I use my ability to analyze to substitute where my faith should be and I do this based on fear. I am afraid of the outcome; therefore, I restructure my process so that I am at the center gathering information and analyzing everything going on around me until I have a solid grasp on what my next step should be. 

This process is moderately logical as I everything together, assemble all of the information and move forward. However, it starts to break down when I reach the pressure point where I am not the center of the universe. I might like to think I am; however, I am not. I am only a small part of the much larger picture I get to be a part of. Re-centering my life so that I am truly relying on the conversation of trust and freedom written into the scriptures I live by. This means I have to stop collecting and analyzing everything. I will run out of memory and explode. I must start taking my time and remembering what is important to remember and analyze. Then I will not be frustrated with all of the things that are out of place. There are many things in life out of place. It is not my job to fix them all. 

This is freedom. 

Where in your life are you trying to put yourself at the center of the universe?

Outside the center,

–JT

PS: As I reread this post in preparation to post it today. I realized how far I have to go before this will truly be something I am good at. I have swung back into the middle of overanalyzing, not trusting.

Second Amendment

This is the second amendment to my life, not the second amendment of the constitution. Go bear arms or don’t go bear arms. The choice is yours.

I am a little at a loss, as to what to share. I had a great talk with my counselor. He is a great guy with whom I think I click. I am glad to get to meet with him. Talking with him is great because the more we talk the more I find out that we have similarities. He also has extra insight into me because we can track each other and follow where we are at. This las week we brought out that I am afraid.

I find information, gain information, analyze information, and make decisions based on this information. This is a freeing revelation as I felt bound by the idea that I might be more inclined towards another bent. I felt restricted to be put into a different box besides this one. There are more dimensions to my personality than this one bent. However, I believe based on our conversation that this is a heavier emphasis than I thought it was. The point where fear plays into this is, I make decisions based on my fear. I overanalyze to avoid my worst fears.

Fear of failure.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear of pain.

Fear.

FEAR.

FEAR!

My fear is knocking me off course. I substitute my fear for faith. I use my fear to fuel my ability to analyze and dissect my life so that I can control the outcome. I am still at a point where I am leaving the implications of what it means to use my faith to fuel my analytics up for discussion as I do not have a solid grasp as to what this means. I am open to interpretation and commentary. However, I will be investigating this more. 

What is knocking you off course? Fear? Anger? Sadness?

Faithfully,

–JT

The Real Tizz Shady

“Fake it till you make it.” – Somebody said this. 

WHY?

It is a terrible philosophy. You have two outcomes. 

1. You make it in an area where you should not have made it. 

2. You don’t.

I would guess the latter is the more likely outcome. Truly, how often do you make it? How often does anyone make it? Why was I faking it in the first place?

Why was I faking it in the first place!?

Seriously, I was trying to fake my ability to do things I did not love doing, and I am not good at, in the first place. I do not think I will love doing everything I do in life. There will always be things in life and work that are simply the things I do not want to do. However, I was trying to do things that I find interesting. But I was doing it simply to please others and because I thought it would just, ‘be okay.’ 

I cannot come up with a scenario where, “fake it till you make it” actually makes sense. I am even more upset with myself for trying to do it. Not intentionally, but it is what happened. I tried to be someone I am not, something I am not. I am glad to be moving past that. I am upsetting the status quo. I am making changes to the way I act and interact with others so I am not trying to be anyone other than me. 

I am who I am. I want to be who I am. I want to be a healthy version of who I am for the people I love so they are better at being who they are. None of us need to fake anything. 

Where are you faking it?

–The Real Tizz Shady

The Memories

I was listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts recently. The episode is mostly about self confidence and related aspects of self confidence; but, at one point one of the hosts, Casey, mentioned a teacher he had that gave him a rather offensive nickname in kindergarten. His story led me to think about my growing up years attending the private elementary school I went to, the friends I had there, and my major successes and struggles while I was there. The greatest struggle was with other students in regards to my weight, I was a chubby kid. This ultimately lead me to even reflect on how I would be picked on an bullied. Today, my weight is not as much of my identity as it once was; however, I do still struggle with my self image in regards to my physique. 

The part of these memories I hung on, as I was listening to this episode, is how kids would pick on me and exclude me, I was as quirky then as I am now. I was really focusing on how I would so strive for the approval of others that I would deprecate myself in order to get them to like me and befriend me. I would do anything I could so that they would like me. I look at myself today and see how I am willing to let others run right over me and keep my mouth shut when I shouldn’t. I was never one of the popular kids and I am not looking to change that today. Today I am only looking to stand up for myself. Not lay down every time I disagree with someone. 

I think this mentality is going to be a struggle to maintain because for so long I’ve ignored it. However, I do look forward to the positive changes it will bring as I move forward in life. I am not looking to be belligerent in the way I change how I act and how I interact with others. I am only looking to give my opinion when I have one.

Remembering,

–JT

Roadblocks

It is always funny to see how different road blocks pop up in my mind. I’ll be trying to see how different issues I’m working through actually play into different parts of my life such as my marriage or my workplace. And I’ll reach a roadblock I just can’t overcome. I can’t move past it. It just sits in front of me and slows me down, stops me. 

I’ll try all sorts of different methods to get past it. I’ll try to just barrel over it as if it doesn’t exist or just sneak around it in some coy thought process. Ultimately, I can’t move past it. Then the unthinkable happens, I sit down with someone who is involved with the roadblock, (ie my wife in relationship with my marriage or a coworker in relationship to my workplace.) And KABLAM, we’ve plowed through the roadblock. 

The first roadblock. 

The second roadblock. 

The third.

The fourth.

We are bounding through roadblocks as if they don’t even matter. Like they were never there. Then, I remember. I remember that I cant work through all of my issues alone. I can change my own behaviors. I can change how I act and interact with people. But I cannot do it alone. Bittersweet, but mostly sweet. I remember I need to be talking to people about what is going on inside as well as outside. What roadblock are you running into? Who could you talk to, to help you through it?

Plowing on,

–JT

Accomplished a Start

I did it! I did an entire month of writing and blogging. I did not miss a day. This isn’t really a huge deal for some. For me it is a bit of an accomplishment. I don’t often feel like I carry through all of my goals to fruition. I will usually give up, make excuses, or chicken out. 

Not this time!

This time I carried it all the way through. I left no stone unturned. I went all the way and didn’t even half-bake anything. I’m not terribly proud of every post. However, I definitely learned quite a bit about myself as a writer and a person. I look forward to the next year, continuing to write and grow as a person. I feel like I can actually achieve these goals and I’m not making lofty goals for myself that I cannot achieve. In the coming year, I look to continue to write. I’ll be posting much less, two or three times a week seems sustainable.

Most importantly, I was successful at something and I did a pretty decent job. This whole last month of writing wasn’t just to fill 30 days with useless blog posts, there are enough of those on the internet, it truly was to write about, process, and discuss what has been going on inside of me and get it all out. Accomplishing something makes me feel good about the coming year. I feel like I might be able to accomplish something more and be successful at something else. 

Proudly,

–JT

Giving up, Giving In

I’ve had quite a bit more to chew up than I thought. It is so interesting to analyze what it means for me to have always held my dad as my hero. It makes for a crazy role model. I look at him so much and see him as my archetype for what it means to be a man and what I should look like. I have to take a good long look at who he is and then I have to look at myself and see how similar we are. I hate to say we are similar. It makes me angry, I don’t want to be like him. He hurt me, I don’t want to hurt anyone. 

When it came to fight or flight, he was a runner. He would run emotionally. I am guessing he ran emotionally for years, hiding, deceiving, and dodging. He finally gave up physically and ran. He ran from his problems multiple times in his life. Hearing from others about how he dealt with various stresses of his first marriage, his third child, and his second marriage, I can now see in him how he ran. 

Similarly, I see in myself, I shut down. I hide my feelings and dodge people who love me. I don’t want to, I just don’t know why I do it. I don’t like it and I don’t think it is healthy. I just don’t know what else to do. I guess I have a topic of conversation for the next time I go see my counselor. 

Reflecting,

–JT