| I write a lot of these emails from a perceived position of authority. Maybe it is just me that perceives that, I don’t know. Like I have reached some level of enlightenment that gives me the right to tell you how to be happy. How to raise your kids. How to be a good human. How to be successful. Etc. Etc. Etc. But one thing I don’t do all the time is be fully transparent. The reality is, I suffer immensely from imposter syndrome. i frequently feel like a liar. Like I can tell you how I think you will be successful and how I think you can be a good human but all the while, I do the opposite. I am a hypocrite. Why am I saying this now? Well, one of my biggest soap boxes is the whole “you are either someone stuff happens to or someone that makes stuff happen.” I say that so much it is like my own little cliche. And the problem is that I have always thought of myself as one that makes stuff happen, almost to the point of looking down on the other. I have always seen “them” as perpetual victims. As blamers. I see that as a fault. Just suck it up. Yeah, life sucks sometimes but push through. But, I gotta tell you, here lately, I have slipped into the stuff always happens to me camp. Life has dealt me several crappy hands in a row. Some is my “fault” technically but a whole lot of it is stuff happening to me. Someone taking advantage of us. Someone lying to us and cheating us. A car breaking down. An expense being significantly higher than expected. A tree falling on the house. Etc. And that causes me to think about one of the other cliches I learned from one of my favorite books (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a ____). Though something may not be your fault, it is your responsibility to deal with it and protect your family, yourself, along the way. And man, that is hard. I want to ignore. To hope it all goes away. To say, “it will all work out” and genuinely believe it and it actually happen. But I can’t. I have to act. I have to be the man–not in a patriarchal, old sense of that “be the man of the family”, but in the “you aren’t a boy anymore, be a man and handle the issue. You are a grown up” sense of the word. And yes, I fully 100% acknowledge that I have help. But it is help. Not do for me. I don’t really write this for anyone to have some great insight. I just want you to know that if you have ever read my stuff and think I have it all together and that you are the problem, stop thinking like that. We are all “the problem” and not the problem at the same time. We all struggle. Some handle it well. Some don’t. Some need meds to handle it. Some don’t. Some do but are too proud to take them. Some of the most “put together” people are the most broken. So stop comparing. Stop asking why me. Ask why not me. And then just do it. Allow a short amount of time to wallow and wring hands. And then do it. Push through. Lean on folks like me. Know that everyone is broken. You are 100% not alone or unique in that way. |
