Some simple rules.

I'm coming up on one year as a mental health counselor (it will be this August 19, precisely) and I have made up my mind to write down a few simple rules that I've discovered make almost every aspect of life much easier.

Part of this is, of course, because I've discovered a lot of people end up in my office precisely because they don’t know the rules and don’t follow them. Furthermore, I’ve found that many of my friends don’t follow my rules, much to my exasperation. It’s not like I feel that I can demand that they do; my exasperation is much the one of someone who sees a simpler way to do things and sees a good friend struggling to do it the hard way.

Here are the rules.

1. Say what you mean, mean what you say.
2. Other people should inform you, but not form you.
3. Emotions are messages, not commands.
4. You are responsible for your own feelings; no one can make you feel anything.
5. You are not responsible for other people’s actions; you are responsible for your response to them.
6. Your obligations to other people are what you decide they are or have made yourself committed to by your words or actions.
7. You can’t give what you don’t have.
8. You can’t give if you don’t get (any rest, peace, support, etc.).
9. Don’t try to fix what you can’t change.
10. Forgive, but don't forget; or forgive, and then forget 'em!
11. Only plan ahead as far as you must.
12. Worrying is a useless emotion – just do what you can and what will be, will be.
13. No one can demand better than your best.
14. If you fail, you either do better next time or you find another solution.
15. Arguing with an idiot makes you a bigger idiot.
16. If you act like a fool, you give others permission to treat you like one.
17. You can either warn people , give them chances, or save them over and over, or let them suffer the consequences of their own actions once.
18. There is no written rule book for how you must feel about something.
19. Relaxing and enjoying yourself is really just recharging your ability to work.
20. The words of family and friends can become our inner voice.
21. No matter how many times a falsehood is spoken, it will not make it true.
22. A good attitude and cheerful spirit can be all you need to succeed.
23. Ask more questions.
24. Listen more than you talk.
25. We belong with other people – no one can make it through life alone.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream that guides me through.

Breaking my idols.

I'm the kind of person who tends to glorify the people I really love.

When it comes right down to it, though, people are actually quite predictable. I build other people up who I love and make me feel good as heroic, idyllic paragons of love, mercy, and justice. But in the end, when it comes down to painful human experience, they really are just like everyone else. Even when I say otherwise. I'm wrong.

It's easy to run away. Sticking things out and doing the hard work of picking up the pieces and figuring out what went wrong is the hard thing to do. I'm not sure why I'm the only one who ever wants to do it. Perhaps no one considers me worth the effort. Still, I'm starting to get used to this. The last time I went through something close to this, it took me over 3 months to recover. I'm already starting to feel better after a few days. At least a little bit. How can someone get used to something like this? But here I am.

I really feel like I saw this coming. I started to make odd predictions out loud that I had no reason to believe. I thought I was being insecure and paranoid, but everything I said came true. I have decided that next time I get these intuitions, I'm going to act on them. I was afraid of self-fulfilling prophecies, but now I'm not sure about it.

Here's the first prediction I'm going to act on. If I can avoid my habit of idolizing people and putting all my happiness and hope into them until well after I move out of my current town, I will be OK and make a long-term recovery...I will change and become happy by myself. If I don't...I'm not sure. My prediction doesn't go that far.

I hope I'm not just going crazy. If I read this on someone else's blog, I would think they were trying to get attention. But this just keeps happening. I'll get a feeling about something and it will end up true.

Right now, I feel like breaking my idols.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of apostasy from my false religion.

Facing outward.

This will be my final post for a while on emotional modesty...this one is meant to tie all the others together.

Here's where my story with emotional modesty begins: I never had any close female friends in high school.

Even when I did have them, it was not by my own choice (they befriended me and I just went along with it) and it was always a bit strange to me. But I acted like myself and never really discussed anything of any depth with girls. Girls were weird...guys I understood. The end.

When I got to college, I actually did get some close female friends, one or two of whom I felt close enough to share some personal things. Women were still more uncomfortable to be around, although not enough to be a deterrent. Still, it was never to the depth of my male friendships until my senior year. I started to change a little bit - mostly because at that time I was engaged in deep reflection about myself, and I discovered that girls tend to do that much more often than guys. Soon, I began to fraternize more frequently with women, especially after I discovered I had a lot in common with many of them. This would inevitably lead to some attractions, but I never considered that a bad thing even when I was eventually turned down. This is where I really began to fail at emotional modesty - and never knew.

It's really only after the past year that I've seen exactly how destructive this kind of sharing could be. I have become attracted to friends against my will, and some friends became attracted to me against theirs.

I actually had three pretty bad experiences in a row the last few months with emotional modesty.

In the first, we had the kind of friendship I would call the "fusion." We were emotionally intertwined and interdependent, leaching off of one another. Why? We were both lonely, and we both had the same reason for being lonely. It was like a firework...it blew up and fizzled out. We grew to like each other very quickly and grew to dislike each other just as fast. She got sick of me, and I got mad at her for it. It took quite a while to heal that friendship, and it's never going to be a good friendship again.

In the second, I did a little better. I was trying to incorporate some emotional modesty in that friendship, even though I did not at that point understand why...therefore, I stunk at it. This friendship was what I would call the "face to face" approach. It didn't work because as hard as we tried to keep a detachment about it, we were constantly faced with one another. That friendship exploded as well, but this one seems to be healing.

In the third, we were dangerously close to a "fusion" friendship. But this time, I think through some hard decision making (and discussion) I have managed to finally make our friendship "face outward." By this, I mean that we are friends without being emotionally intertwined to the point that we are acting like we're dating. We are looking more out at the world together, and not at one another. And we're great friends.

Before these events, I thought that because I never got attracted to girls who had boyfriends (even if we shared emotional things), it meant that this was possible in every guy-girl friendship. However, I am now thinking that this is an exception rather than the rule. The only reason I never get attracted to girls who have boyfriends is because I am practical and see a relationship as impossible in those situations, and my feelings cooperate with that. However, I am now seeing it as very possible that any other relationship with a girl can involve attractions where there has been mutual sharing of feelings - and that even though I have experienced it as a good thing, it is not always a good thing at all - because it has really damaged a lot of those guy-girl friendships no matter how well and how craftily I tried to fix it.

In my contemplation of this problem, it occurred to me how there is actually a real level of emotional connection between a boyfriend and girlfriend, and how I had built this connection with women before without any commitment to them other than as a friend. Only then did it occur to me how unfair that was, and how it would thus follow that I could only consistently share things like that with other men, as there is no danger of attraction there. The only really difficult thing about that is that most of the men I know who were open to discussions like that with me are no longer around. But it's not all about me.

Even if I were really, really good friends with a girl, our relationship would never and could never look like a dating relationship, unless we were dating. While we might from time to time share feelings, or even cry, those times should be few and far between. If that is how it must be, then that is how it will be.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to face outward.

The longest lesson in a song.

Phoenix, a band I like, came out with a new album. All of their songs are pretty upbeat, but one in particular has really grabbed my attention...so of course I had to look up the lyrics.

I think this song represents for me the life lesson that has taken me the longest to learn. I'm not sure if I've actually talked about this "lesson" in my blog yet. Here's how I interpreted the song, and you'll see my lesson.

Just don't bother
Don't fed the animals
Don't let them run in circles

Don't be told
They just don't matter

If you're more than ready, run away
From dusk to dawn

Bad situations become worse when you feed them. If people are being unreasonable or are crossing lines with you, you can let them run in circles on their own and leave.

Last night on the couch you're livid
It's a poor complaint
It's the only thing
You're sad and underweight

You can be upset and withdrawn and self-pitying...but that never solves anything. Ever.

Whatever, we're so close to "serious"
Whatever promise you made
I have no problem to say "no"

Often when people become emotionally involved with one another, it can become a tense situation where things are more serious than either party is willing to commit. Sometimes we say things we can't really fulfill ("we're destined to be together forever") and you have to be able to say "no" for the best of both of you.

I'll never know
I'll never know you
Restrained
Reach out for me
I'll never know you if you don't

We'll never understand each other if we don't communicate. We'll never really know one another as well as one can know oneself, but being open with one another is the only way to even get close.

It's just another
It's just another complicated case
To settle down the road
Whatever we're too close to "serious"
Whatever promise you made
From dusk to dawn

Being in relationship with other people, if you are doing it in a meaningful way, can get complicated...to the point where if it's your habit it might happen a lot. Still, you have to be able to settle it at some point.

Don't swear that it is your fault
You're sophisticated
I saw the chandelier
I'm foreign and under stress
Whatever we're too close to "serious"
Whatever comments you make
I hear the rattle to say "no"

In any situation between two people, there is liability for what happened on both sides. It's useless to denigrate yourself. All one can do is one's very best...no one can ask for more.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for an infusion of music to learn from.