rollover topic

I'd like to extend the previous 'theory' or philosophy beyond family, because indeed it does extend beyond family. Those unreasonable feelings of personal accountability aren't just limited to parents. It can extend to anyone you really care about. And it sucks, because it almost always makes you look like an irrational jerk.

A few examples: last summer my best friend got married. The person he got married to and situation he married into, and the way in which he married, were all things I disagreed with, or to be more specific, weren't the way I would've done them...........but it's not about me. It took me a long time after he got married to come to terms with all that.

I've always held an image in my mind about how marriage should be, the way things are supposed to work. It was established by the way I'd seen it happen over and over in the world in which I was raised in. The 'world' I was raised in was almost entirely Mormon. My influences from inside the house were 100% Mormon, and the vast majority of all of my influences outside the house were Mormon too. It wasn't until I was 15-16 that I start going back to an outside school and was able to experience life outside of a completely Mormon influence, but by that point I'd had 15 years of Mormon influence that had already established and deeply rooted certain ideals in my brain. (Obviously that was the point). Anyways, very seldom in Mormon society do women have children outside of marriage, and very seldom do people get a divorce, both of which mean that very very seldom are there ever kids involved from a previous relationship or marriage. Also, Mormon weddings are really played up, very celebrated. Very seldom is there a marriage in which there wasn't an engagement, invitations, a reception, yada yada. So when this is what I expect for myself and from everyone else, and then my best friend marries a girl who has a kid from a previous relationship, and they don't have any kind of engagement or anything, it really threw me for a loop.

At first I was all "Wow, I can't believe you did that, you're crazy, this isn't right for you, you could do so much better" yada yada yada and so on. After awhile I started to realize that it's his choice and really none of my business, but I still didn't like it. Now I am realizing that I'm having those same feelings of accountability almost. I care for my best friend, and I want him to have the best opportunity in life possible, and I didn't think the choices he was making would lead to that opportunity. I felt like he was cutting himself short. I certainly must have felt responsible to some degree because I kept trying to talk him out of it the idea that his situation was 'okay'.

So in that case I was getting emotionally involved in someone else's choices that didn't really have anything to do with me. I was crusading my beliefs and morals on his behalf. It was selfish but me to fight him on the topic and to treat him any differently than I would have otherwise.

In any case, I've been doing the same thing with my brother, and it's unfair in this case too. He was really close to getting married to this girl a few years ago but things didn't work out. A few years later she comes back into his life but she's married to another guy and she has a daughter. She's on the brink of divorce and my brother is caught up in a whirlwind of emotion thinking back to times when he was in love with her. For a long time I've been fighting him on the topic saying he needs to stay far far away from her, that she's no good, that he needs to find a better girl, and so on. The same kind of thing with my best friend. I want only the best for him, or rather, what "I" think would be the best for him. But more and more I'm beginning to realize what I think is best for him and what's actually best for him may be entirely different. If she makes him happy, that's really all I should ask for. Having a kid from a previous marriage puts him at a disadvantage, yes, but if he recognizes that and is willing to deal with it, then good for him I guess, that's his choice. If he wants to start dating her again after her divorce, I won't completely fight him on it anymore.

And getting away from me, I've been victim to this kind of behavior before. I've explained what happened in a previous post. In my freshman year of college my room mate was giving me lots of grief for no apparent reason, and he later said it was because I was doing so poorly in my grades and being generally anti-social. He was holding his standard of living for me, and must have felt somehow accountable for my poor behavior.

In any case, this can really happen to anyone you really care about. You want the best for the people you love, but sometimes you just have to stop and consider that what you think is best isn't always necessarily what is best for them.

parenting

I came to some conclusions the other day that I'd thought about before, but hadn't given the time to reinforce. As always, I came to these realizations during a conversation with a friend, two friends actually (within a few days of each other).

The topic came up when I was describing to my friend how nervous I was to become a parent. When asked why I was nervous, I replied 'because there's no fail-safe method to parenting'. The other friend, after a lengthy analysis of how people raised their kids, asked me "How would you raise your kids?" "I don't know", I said. Both questions led to the same response. There's no fail-safe way to raise your kids such that they will do everything you want them to and avoid doing the things you don't want them to. There's no formula to follow to turn that impressionable and vulnerable little baby into a independent and successful member of society. There just isn't. No matter what method you choose for raising you kids, it's imperfect and flawed. You can do everything you thought was right, everything you thought a parent was supposed to do, and still not end up with the result you wanted. Realizing that, I think, is an important part of being a parent.

Knowing and accepting that your children will have huge trials in their life is one thing, but realizing that you are going to go through your own trials because of the decisions that your kids make, decisions that have no affect on you other than that it was a choice contradictory to what you taught them to make....realizing and accepting THAT...well, that's something entirely different.

That's what I'm nervous about. The struggles I'll inevitably go through because of the way my children choose to live their life. Not the "my 15 year old son stole and crashed my car and now I'm stuck with the loan" kind of struggles, I'm talking about the "I've taught him all his life what I thought was best and still he chooses not to listen" kind of struggles. The internal demons kind.

My friend was explaining to me how some things she chose to keep secret from her parents, substantial enough things that it affected the way in which she was able to interact with her parents and siblings. She explained that she avoided disclosing such things because of the social conflict it would cause, but that because she had to avoid those topics, it affected how she could interact, to a degree that she was unhappy with. Now, as a person who has always been very upfront with everyone about the type of person I am and what my ideas and beliefs are, including my family and parents, this behavior she was describing to me seemed entirely unnecessary. Yes, it's true, parents will suffer all kinds of grief and feelings of personal failure in light of certain actions their children may make, but I've decided that for parents to take that discontent and turn it against their child, whether it's blaming the child for making them feel that way, or trying to make the child feel bad for being the cause of such feelings, or by just acting towards the child in ways that are negative or detrimental to the family peace, is entirely and completely selfish as the parent.

I know for a fact that many of my decisions and beliefs have caused my parents sorrow, to varying degrees. But that's their problem. And when my friend said she didn't want to tell her parents about things she had done because she didn't want to hurt them, I told her the same thing, it's their problem, not hers. And by choosing not to tell them, she is taking their burden upon herself, causing her to be unable to be herself around her parents, for fear of disclosure.

Now, there's something admirable to be said about people who take the burdens of others upon themselves. According to the stories of various Christian religions, there was a follower of Christ who, when Christ was forced to carry his cross up the hill to Calvary, offered to carry the cross himself so that Christ wouldn't have to suffer the burden. It's an admirable thing, very selfless and giving, to do something like that. But it's important to understand who's burden it really is.

In the case of my friend, she is assuming the burden is hers. She assumes that because she made the decision, that the deceitful way in which she now has to behave among her parents us just another one of the consequences of making that choice. But I disagree. And this is the point I'm trying to make. Parents have many burdens when it comes to raising kids. The feelings of sorrow and failure will, almost undoubtedly, come in any parent's life as a result of the choices their children make. But the knowledge of those choices is their burden to carry, and to try and put that burden off on their kids through guilt, or on anyone else, is selfish. They're your kids, you're the one getting emotional because they are displaying behavior that is contradictory to ideals you hold for yourself, but not just for yourself, you hold those ideals for them as well, making you feel personally accountable for things that you might not necessarily be accountable for. Of course, there should be no logical accountability for your children after they turn 18. At some point you have to let go, and if you continue to hold on and feel accountable for them after that time, it's your own problem.

That's what I'm scared of when it comes to being a parent. It's all well and good to be debating the logical reasoning behind the actions people take, but the problem with being a parent is that the emotions are so overwhelming. When the time comes that I have to struggle with my own feelings of failure and sorrow because of the decisions my kids make, will I still be able to tell myself "this is your burden, don't put it on others"? Will I be able to own up to that burden and bear it? Will I even realize it for what it is? Or will emotions overwhelm everything and muck it all up, like emotions tend to do? Who knows. I have a lot of ideas about how I want to raise my kids, and still lots of questions, but at least this is one more thing I know to look out for.

hurricane ike was a disappointment...

It's been awhile since my last post, mostly because I haven't had any big epiphanies or any philosophical realizations recently, which of course has been the basis of most of my posts. Life does continue to go on though, and with it has come lots of stuff. To talk about life in general, it's hard to tell how happy I am with it right now. It's a new semester and my weaknesses are manifesting themselves as much as ever. It becomes my only source of discontent with the state of my life.

I'm talking, of course, about my disciplinary habits. Most easily notable in my sleeping schedule and study habits, as always. There's other areas of my life that my distraction and laziness causes problems, but school and sleep have always been the two biggest ones. At times I feel that if I can just get my sleep schedule under control, that if I can just muster enough discipline to regulate that one part of my life, that everything else would fall into place. I could be more focused at school, I would have more energy and drive to do the tasks I need to, and that most importantly, I would feel good about my life in every area. It's so tough for me though, when 11pm-12am rolls around, to make that call, and stop whatever I'm doing, and go to sleep. Ideally I would like to go to sleep at 11-11:30 every night and wake up at 7-7:30. But especially on the weekends its hard for me to go to sleep early, because I know I dont usually have anything going on the next day, and that it's alright if I sleep in. And then when I do sleep it, I usually end up REALLY sleeping in, because I DON'T have anything to do, or if there's things I HAD planned on doing, they quickly become extremely unimportant when it comes to getting out of bed.

I think back to earlier in the year, when I felt like I was in a really good place in my life. For about a month or two I really felt like I had things under control, and I think it all stemmed from me getting my sleeping schedule under control. There's something to be said that I'm sure aided to my success during that time, and as much as I hate to admit it because I love it so much, I had my account for my online game, World of Warcraft, deactivated during that time. It makes it seem like such a simple solution, deactivate World of Warcraft and life is good. But that's the problem, it's not that simple. Not playing World of Warcraft presents other problems.

By deactivating my account I end up with nothing to fill my free time with, forcing me to pursue alternate sources of entertainment, and whether that alternate entertainment is other games, going out with friends, or whatever else, it almost certainly proves to be a more costly avenue than World of Warcraft. I pay $15/mo for a subscription to that game, and it's about all the entertainment I could ask for, whereas during the time I had it deactivated, I was paying for a subscription to Blockbuster for unlimited video game rentals for my Xbox, which was $22/mo. It may seem strange that I would deactivate one subscription only to go to another, but it worked because so few other games are as entertaining as WoW. I would lose interest in them quickly, meaning I wasn't so eager during the days to rush home and play, effectively giving me more will power to do the things at school I needed to. But whereas that caused me to feel good about my disciplinary habits and scholastic and responsible adult life, I was often unhappy with my options of entertainment when I really did have free time.

In addition to cheap entertainment, WoW also provides an avenue for me to socialize with friends of mine that I don't normally see or get to hang out with because of 'geographical differences', so to speak. For several months last year I was able to play with my brother Spencer, several days a week. As it is now, we'll talk on the phone a few times a month, but it's nothing compared to tackling obstacles and sharing experiences together, albeit in an online video game. Recently I've been playing more often than usual because my good friend, James, currently has the luxury of giving some time to the game, but that won't last forever and he'll soon deactivate again and I'll be left to play by myself. I've been making the most of the time he has available, and it's been great fun. James is one of my great friends and since he lives in Idaho, I never see him, but I can 'see' him and 'hang out' with him online. Nerdy though it may seem, it's undeniable that online games provide a social avenue for friends to interact that they otherwise wouldn't have.

So there's that, my plug for online gaming. I think there's aspects of it that are important and fun and perfectly healthy. Cutting it out of my life entirely, though it may help in some ways, just doesn't seem like the cure-all option I'm looking for. For lack of a better analogy, you can take the drugs away from an addict but that doesn't stop him from being an addict. He'll find ways to get what he wants. You can take a miscreant teen who's mixing with the wrong sort of friends, and move him to a new town, and he'll just make new 'wrong friends' and continue in the same fashion. I can deactivate my WoW account, but I'll find other avenues of entertainment that may be equally unhealthy, albeit in different ways.

The problem then, isn't with WoW, it's with me. That much is obvious. Just because you cut out the visible tumor doesn't mean the cancer is gone. I need to just master myself, control my body and my emotions, all that zen stuff that like buddha monks preach and junk.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally camping on my computer every moment I'm not in class. I'm still much busier than I was Spring semester (when I only had 13 credits and 1 part-time job), and much much busier than I was last fall semester (when I had 15 credits and no jobs), so I spend an ample amount of my time during the week doing constructive things. Between class, completing assignments with deadlines, and my two jobs, I'm tied up for about 55 hours a week, give or take. So it's really not like I have tons of time to play, and because I so seldom have large quantities of free time, I try to spend that time with friends. It's just those few hours preceding my 'desired' bed time that I struggle with, and that struggle is going to be there regardless of my options in entertainment.

However, things have been looking a little up in that regard over the last week or so. Saturday morning I was up at 9:30, possibly the earliest I've been up on a Saturday in months, and Sunday I was up at 10, making it to church. Yesterday I was up at 7:10, twenty minutes before I normally get up for 8am class, easily the earliest I've been up since the semester started. But I know that while forcing myself to get up early will definitely make me more eager to go to sleep early, it isn't enough. I have to apply that extra discipline to both the 'going to bed' part and the 'waking up' part. I'm hoping when I get the 'going to bed' part down, the 'waking up' part won't be so difficult, and that when I get them BOTH down, neither of them will be difficult. Humans are creatures of habit, same as anything else on this planet. All I need to do is break my habit I've had for years of pushing the limit on my bed time and pushing the limit on my rising time, and start a new, more disciplinary one. Here's hoping.