An apathetic friend.

The further away I get from college life, the less I care about it.

It used to be that I was really broken up about the end of my life as a college student, and how much I missed the lifestyle and the friendships, but these days I am finding that more and more I do not miss it and do not care if my old friends have anything to say to me. That does not trouble me because I wish it were different, it troubles me because it is so opposed to everything I thought about myself.

It used to be that I firmly believed that all friendships could and should last forever, and that only a faithless friend says goodbye after life changes. But now, I am finding that the longer ago it is since I called someone, the more I think about just never calling them again. Friends whom I shared life with and thought warmly of, friends that I felt so much love for, and now...I just don't care.

Have I become a selfish person? Have I just become comfortable with my daily routine, apathetic toward the lives of others? Does this have something to do with becoming a counselor? I do not know.

Maybe I have just become like everyone else...perhaps this is how most people feel about friendships, and all along it was I who was missing out, not understanding why other people don't care about me - perhaps they did care, but were apathetic about showing it. I wish I knew.

It's been over a year since I left college, and it's been a good half a year since I made regular efforts to reach out to friends from my old life. More and more, I find that now that in my new life, I also don't care as much about being friends with people. They can reach out to me or leave me alone...I am apathetic. This troubles me.

I am afraid that my personality is changing, and I'm not sure if it's for the best.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to care forever.

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.

Rise or fall.

"Aragorn, Arathorn's son, Lord of the Dunedain, listen to me! A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin."

I like going to counseling. It helps to talk to someone who is completely outside of your life to hear everything you can say about it and help you work through the issues that present/have presented themselves.

Soon, though, it appears as I will be done with my current counselor. We've both kind of recognized that I've reached my limit of things to bring to the table. I concluded our last session by telling him that I recognize that whatever happens to me now, I recognize that I will either adjust to it or not adjust to it...and that I always adjust.

That's a nice thought. It's good to be able to say with complete honesty that I always adjust to my problems after a while...sometimes it takes a long while but it always happens.

I think since I started counseling I've made some good adjustments. I am no longer as prone to expecting people to respond the way I believe they ought to my gestures of love and friendship. I've learned to strike a balance between how much I give to friendships and how much I let them go. I've learned to cut toxic people out of my life instead of letting them fester in my wounds.

I also accept that there is still hope. There are still really good people in this world, and I'm still meeting them. Sure, I've lost and let go of relationships that were beautiful, and found out that some people were not as wonderful as I once thought, but in the end that's OK. As long as I am being a good person and treating people how I wish they would treat me, there will be people attracted to that. The people who are just fair weather friends and are not willing to be my friend even when I'm not all that fun to be around will fade away. The lovers will remain.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to rise above all of the problems of the old days.

On saying "No."

I have taken a little longer to write a new post, mostly because I've realized how little I have to say that I haven't already said.

I recently applied to give a talk at a retreat. This is one of those secret retreats I'm not allowed to give much detail about, so I'll be giving as little detail as I can while still getting to my point. I had been on this retreat only once before, and unlike most people who went on I never applied to be on team. I've even had two years longer to do it, and only now that I've come to my last chance to do so have I applied. There were multiple reasons for doing this, but I did always help the retreat in some regard without being on team. Things that you can only do by not being on team for the retreat.

Well, I was denied. They offered me a different position that didn't exist when I went on the retreat - it was created simply so that they could have a larger team and not deny so many people. I didn't take it. I said no.

I have thought about this for a few days. I've talked about it with only a few people, who all seemed to believe I was acting out of anger, jealousy, or selfishness. Or some combination of those three. I'm not surprised, it was more or less what I expected to hear. I do have a few practical reasons for not going, one of which being that I don't actually have time to do it. I would be giving up sleep and meals, and I have already had to cut back on those. Sure, I was prepared to do that to give a witness, but to do a position that I could show up with no preparation and do exactly the same? Selfish or not, I said no.

I have made an effort to not share as much about myself as I once did years ago. I did this out of a concern that I was being too attention-grabbing and making things too much about myself. This never meant, however, that I didn't want to share about myself. One thing I've always wanted to do but never asked for until now was to have a chance to talk in front of my community about the mistakes I've made and how I came out of it alive - so that maybe those lessons wouldn't be wasted on just myself. Well, I asked and they said no. And so did I, in return. Right or wrong, that's how it played out and I want to think I made the right choice.

Having something bad happen to you, like rejection, is always about trying to make the best out of a bad situation and moving on. I hate sounding like a pity party but I've been doing that for a long time now and I am sick of it. I just want something to go my way. But life doesn't work according to our demands. Very well.

In response to all of this stuff I have written about for months, I have gotten very defensive of myself. My life has curled in on itself. I feel like I need to defend myself, because I'm the only one who can. I don't have anyone else who can look out for me like I can. I don't expect those who called me selfish to understand how hurt I am, how that hurt gets compounded on top of more hurt. When you're hurt you need medicine. My medicine is saying no.

I don't expect that things should always go my way, but I can always refuse to play along with other people's demands. People don't have to respect me. But if they won't respect me, I will work on ways to better respect myself. And right now, I believe respecting myself means refusing to give up hours of time that I need so that I can heal my mind.

Maybe someday, I will have a chance to share my life with people without needing to go out of my way or whoring for attention. But that is not this day.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream of saying no.

The chronic thinker.

I've concluded that stopping the downward spiral of thinking that is my brain is as difficult as stopping a train with a flyswatter. Prevention is the best medicine.

A chronic thinker is someone who relentlessly contemplates everything. Thoughts can run from anxiety-provoking thoughts like "I wonder if we're in tornado alley? I better check. OHMYGOSH WE ARE, I GOTTA GO MAKE A SHELTER" to depressing thoughts like "They haven't called. I guess they're not interested. No one calls. So no one is interested in spending time with me." It likely has little to do with intelligence and more to do with emotion.

Observe: Last weekend was a nightmare for the chronic thinker I am. I had already been starting to get quite upset by how quickly many of my friendships had disappeared once I was no longer around to try and keep them going. How little it seemed most people thought of me unless I was right in their faces. So, I emailed a long lost friend and my last girlfriend, just innocently asking how they were and what they were up to. Nothing more. Then, I had to take part in my friend's wedding. It was an honor and a nightmare. For one, I had to see my last girlfriend, who seemed to be virtually inseparable from her new boyfriend. I felt as though I missed her. I began to make the connection between her and the last time I was happy, realizing again what a support she had been in my life where friends and family were failing me. I kept trying to remind myself that it was not her I missed, but the loving support. No use - my thoughts kept bouncing back and forth like a bouncy ball in a concrete room. Wondering where I'd gone wrong. Thinking about what we had been together. Hating myself for thinking about that because I knew I was right to end the relationship and it was the best thing for us.

Continuing on, I thought about how I lost a lot of the friends I had when I broke up with her. How they cared more about her than about me, even though I was hurt, too. How none of them except the guy I was friends with before we dated tried to be my friend anymore. Making the connection between that and my current misery. Reflecting on how it was my own choice, my own unselfish desire to do the right thing that led to us breaking up and destroying what I did not know was my biggest support group in life. Reflecting on if I hadn't broken up with my last girlfriend we might be engaged/almost engaged by now...and that we'd be planning our wedding. Thinking again about how pathetic this all is and I should be happy with myself for just doing the right thing and continuing to be myself.

Repeat.

Wrote a letter to a girl I loved and respected before she moved away. Tried to keep it brief, friendly, and optimistic. Failed. Cried miserably the entire time I wrote it. Reflected on how every time I write this girl a letter I don't stop crying until I finish the letter. Told a friend I missed her. Wondered what might have happened if I had seen her the way I see her now months ago. Tried not to think about it. Failed that, too. Told another friend, one of the few to actually still really care about me, to stop texting me everyday to make sure I was OK even though I appreciated it because it was making me too emotionally attached. She agreed. Reflected on how wretched doing the right thing can make you feel sometimes. Hated myself for not just being happy I did the right thing. Went to sleep.

And woke up...fine. Fine! I've been fine all day. What's changed?

I'll tell you. I didn't start thinking about it. So I haven't thought of this stuff all day until now. This is just one of those things I'm still figuring out about myself. If I can keep myself away from the things that trigger me (Facebook, certain people, some texts) I don't start thinking about that stuff...and I remain OK.

Now it's written, so now I can't forget. I said I was the only one who can help me, and now I am.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to slow it down.

The pay-off.

In human action and interaction, there is rarely, if ever, any sort of arbitrariness. There is always a "point" to it...something I am trying to "get" or "achieve."

It is a dangerous business to always go through life without examining what kind of pay-off I am trying to get from my actions. "What is the point of what I'm doing?" I must ask if I truly wish to be a person of virtue.

I have become aware, recently, of how lax I have been in checking myself for these pay-offs. I thank God that I know I'm being an arrogant fool sometimes. It comes out in a few of these posts. While it may be true I feel like a Jedi when I counsel people, I think it is true I tell people so not for any reason other than because I want their approval, which is a very silly reason. If I am to be someone who only cares how God judges me, that's not really the way to go about it.

Even while I am being more vigilant in my awareness of why I am doing what I'm doing I know that I must have blind spots. This is why I have decided I need to make sure I am getting plenty of virtuous friendships. The path to righteousness was never intended, I believe, to be taken alone. This is why I am very grateful for the friendship of a man I will refer to as G.

G and I only met this year, and I must say at first I was a bit annoyed at him. Not because I didn't appreciate his sense of humor and found him a bore, but because I was so unused to not having to work to make friends with someone that I found it almost irritating. But I am grateful I decided to throw this aside and give it a shot. G is a great Catholic man, and even though he seems awkward and timid to the unobservant, in reality he is definitely not afraid to ask me the tough questions. "Do you think you're reading too much into it?" He asked the other day as I told him a guy-to-guy story. I thought briefly and answered "yes" because of course I was.

I appreciated this probably more than I let on to G, because I need friends like him to alert me to my blind spots. Someone to sharpen my iron, to use the Pauline phrase. I know I can count on G to help me grow in virtue, because I can tell that even more than he likes to have fun with me, I know he wants to grow closer to Christ, and help me in that, too.

G is, of course, not the only virtuous friendship I have. I could mention a few others, some of whom are probably my readers (I believe there are about 8 people who regularly keep up with this blog in any regular fashion, and I have perhaps indulgently assumed these are my closest associates). However, G is a great example of what I hope to have more of. I find I am increasingly less interested in idle amusement in my friendships, and more and more interested in learning something from them. This is what attracts me most to a person: their wisdom that I so desperately need!

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for a virtuous pay-off.

Shadow and Flame.

"You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum. Shadow and flame."

I have entitled this post "Shadow and Flame" because it is about as close to an overall theme as I think I can get. Sometimes when I start these posts I'm not really certain at all what they're going to be about. Hence, the shadow. But there are some strong feelings circling around (most of them now my own) so I shall call that the flame.

First, the shadow. I'll be brief since I've discussed this in detail before...I suppose the best summary of my feelings about where my personal life is going is "I have no idea." It seems as though the more I try to make my world revolve around God, the more strongly the current pushes me to abandon that and revolve around what I will simply and succinctly dub "female drama" (no questions please) OR meaningless and unfounded anxieties. That latter bit is perfectly summarized in last week's post. One long anxiety attack over a conversation with a friend. Things have, as I really knew all along, turned out fine.

Now we are getting to the flame. I suppose I should start by saying that my personality is "shifting" for the fifth time in four years. It seems like every time this happens I go a little insane. Case in point: freaking out because I was worried I wasn't able to stop counseling people and would lose all my friends by either offending them with directive counseling techniques or by making them into clients.

Yes, this happened.

The flame: my dating fast ends this Sunday. What will I do? Whatever. I'm actually pretty serious about that. I will do whatever I will do, and let God be my guide. I'm not worried - not because I earnestly believe I have nothing to worry about, but because I don't want to worry and rationally speaking there is no real use or purpose for worrying. Whatever comes, comes. Whatever goes, goes. That is my earnest conclusion from all the mistakes I've ever made concerning relationships.

Everything is fine, because on the inside I have the joy no one can take from me. Peace.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for light and warmth.

Preoccupations and lies.

Again, many things have changed emotionally since my last post.

I'm fine now. In fact, I started to get a lot better only shortly after my last post. Why? Honestly, I think it was all the video games. Video games, for reasons I can't explain, seem to numb all my social senses, including loneliness. I should probably elaborate, but that's a subject for another post.

Lately I've noticed that my thoughts haven't been moving from one thing to another as I would like but recurring over the same thoughts over and over. It's become more of a preoccupation rather than a "thought stream" if you will. Mostly, I seem to be preoccupied with thoughts of my family, and a person.

A conversation with a friend today led me to understand that I do hide things from time to time. I typically characterize myself as someone who is very open and honest, but during conversation with this friend I realized that I was hiding something - for a good reason, and I was quick to explain why I had to not reveal something. Still, I couldn't help but notice that I almost didn't catch that was what I was doing...I was so sure that I was an open person that I didn't realize I actually don't share everything...just most things. Anything that is convenient for me to share, I do. And that is the vast majority of things I want to share...but I do have secrets. And I also have things that I shouldn't share, because they would damage myself or another person, or can't, because they are other people's secrets...but I digress.

This knowledge of my preoccupations coupled with my realization about my secrets led me to think about lying.  Lying, I believe, is less about making up a convincing story or creating something that isn't true but more about concealing what is true. When you lie your goal is not to create a fine tale but to do whatever possible to hide the truth. Should you tell a lie, you care less about what they believe so long as it's not the truth that you seek to hide. For instance, you don't care if your parents believe the dog knocked over the lamp or the tooth fairy, so long as they don't know it is you who actually broke the lamp.

Well, I sometimes forget about this, but I'm a really good liar. You kind of need to be a good liar to even hope to be a counselor...not because you lie to your patients (never, ever) but because sometimes you must conceal a truth that would be harmful for your client to hear (such as, you not liking them). I used to lie a lot, before following God a little more closely. At one time I was so good at it, I hid something very obvious for an entire summer without getting caught.

These days there is not much use for that skill, besides keeping a poker face from time to time and "picking my battles" when I would really like to say a truth that the world is not quite ready for.

Getting back to preoccupations, in a roundabout way (as you can see by the lengthy explanation above) I discovered that even though I can lie/conceal truth to other people I simply cannot do so to myself. My preoccupations reveal something to me I do not wish to believe. What that is...I am concealing for now. Sorry, but it's not really all that important to this blog post anyway. What I mean to say is, I have tried to lie even to myself, but failed...and I doubt it will ever be possible to lie to myself without regressing to a less self-aware state.

Anyone who reads these posts will notice I am a holistic person. My solitary boast: I have done a really good job of learning about myself and how my mind works. That said, such self-knowledge has made it impossible for me to not know something about myself of which I'd rather remain unaware. Like I said, I've been preoccupied with my family and with a person. At this point, my actions on these thoughts are all up to me, but I cannot avoid what these preoccupations reveal to me about my feelings...revelations that would be more helpful if they were hidden...at least, at this point, I believe they would. Maybe I would be more susceptible to doing something stupid if they were there and I was unaware of them.

Time will tell.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for truth of thought.

The levels of self-awareness.

I have a theory about people. Well, I have lots of those, but here is one of them.

One thing I've noticed about college-aged folks is that there is a wide variety of maturity among them. I do not wish to speak of vices and poor habits, but particularly the part of maturity I call "self-awareness."

To be "self-aware" in the particular sense that I refer to it is not the same as sentience, the difference between humans and other animals, but the amount someone is aware of their true self.

I believe this manifests itself in a few levels: the amount someone is in touch with their own feelings. Feelings, in this sense, goes beyond just emotions, but also opinions and thoughts about the nature of who they are and what they do. If you're confused, just keep reading.

The first level of self-awareness is "I feel." At this level, the person is just self-aware enough to express something. You begin at this level as a baby.

The second level of self-awareness is "I am feeling." At this level, the person expresses feelings and is aware of them. Usually some time after a person starts talking they are able to reach this level.

The third level of self-awareness is "I am feeling because." At this level, the person is aware of their feelings and is aware of their source. Much like the second level, some time after a person starts talking they are able to work at this level, perhaps less frequently.

The fourth level of self-awareness is "I have felt." At this level, the person is able to reflect on past feelings and see how they have felt certain ways over time and see some level of a pattern.

 The fifth level of self-awareness is "I have felt because." At this level, the person is able to reflect on past feelings, see how they have felt over time, see a clear pattern and understand their feelings in a larger context.

The sixth level of self-awareness is "I feel because." This is the highest level of self-awareness in which the person is able to achieve all of the aspects of the fifth level but also integrate this awareness in every day life and relate it easily and clearly to him or herself and others.

If this idea is confusing, let's make an example. Let's say a person were asked about being bullied at a young age. Someone in "I feel" would simply cry. Someone in "I am feeling" would tell you they feel sad. Someone in "I am feeling because" would tell you they feel sad because you brought up that memory. Someone in "I have felt" would tell you that being bullied made them sad but they eventually got out of it and it only upsets them when people bring it up. Someone in "I have felt because" would tell you that being bullied made them sad, that they eventually got over it, that it upsets them when people bring it up, that they are sometimes insecure because of it, and this causes them to sometimes react very strongly to gossip. Someone in "I feel because" would tell you everything in the previous sentence without having to think about it for very long.

People with higher levels of self-awareness don't wear masks very much. They are more genuine, more real, more in touch with themselves. People on lower levels of self-awareness wear masks a lot...even lower, they may not even realize they're wearing one. People of higher levels of self-awareness are better able to understand others with lower levels. Ever watch a little kid do or say something and think "I know what he's thinking, and furthermore, I know he doesn't realize I know what he's thinking." That's what I mean.

Most people I meet that are a little younger than me are functioning somewhere between the third and fourth level of self-awareness. Sometimes I wonder if they realize how obvious it is to others functioning on a higher level of self-awareness how much about themselves they're hiding, and how unaware they are of how they are acting. They're pretty easy to manipulate, too.

I can always tell when I meet someone who's on the fifth or sixth level. They're very interesting people and fun to talk to about living life and talking about "deeper things." I feel like when I'm talking to someone on the sixth level, we just sort of "connect" in such a knowing way.

All of this is really hard to describe. I'm pretty sure this blog post doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Oh well.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for greater self-awareness.