![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Do or do not, there is no try."
Nov. 27th, 2011 04:59 pmMy mother and I may agree on a lot more things these days than we used to, which is great, but there are still some themes popping up in our conversations on a regular basis that make me want to bash my palm against my forehead repeatedly.
We just had another one of those If You Would Only Try Harder moments. It's not that she necessarily blames me for my problems or actually says that I could solve them all by myself if I made a bigger effort - she understands now that something is probably "broken" in my actual body* and that my mental issues are more complex than she thought, too. I only get this impression from her when we are discussing an isolated incident rather than the whole picture, such as an appointment that I missed. She remains convinced that I could "make an exception" for those if I really put my mind to it, that I should at least be able to "overcome" my difficulties occasionally because other people occasionally go to work in spite of having the flu as well, and that sort of thing should be perfectly possible for everyone as long as it doesn't happen too often. >_<
I can see the logic behind that, honestly. It's like, if you usually don't get up until 8 am and then one day you suddenly need to catch a plane at 6, of course you will grit your teeth and "just do it" this one time. There's no question about it, that's how life works. So I totally get why she thinks that this should translate to my situation faultlessly, but no amount of logic will make an untrue thing true.
She has a couple of catch phrases relating to this, you know. "Don't try, just act" is perhaps the most infuriating one - only Yoda gets to say anything like that, okay?! If you're not Yoda, then freaking forget about it. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRYING AND DOING IF YOU LITERALLY TRY AS HARD AS YOU CAN, ARGH. No matter from which direction you look at it. "I did it" means that you tried and succeeded, whether you use the word or not - what makes it so hard to imagine that the exact same process could sometimes result in failure??
It's important to be aware of one's own limitations in order to be open to the possibility of working around them. A slightly more reasonable person recently said that she was impressed with my dedication to finding such alternatives. "[Forcing yourself to stay awake the second-to-last night before an appointment] is an awfully huge sacrifice to make," she went on, "you certainly can't be accused of lacking motivation." And you know what? She is right. I never thought of it that way before, but in fact I go out of my way to achieve success through unconventional means. If I didn't do that - if I only ever applied my motivation the traditional way due to believing in some ridiculous, idealistic Jedi crap - then I'd be wasting my life running headfirst into walls all of the time.
Not that it doesn't still happen, mind you. And try as I might, I cannot find a way around every single wall that presents itself to me, either. Motivation isn't magic! They should teach that in schools.
*I don't like to use the word "broken" under normal circumstances, but in this case it's the perfect fit due to the nature of her attitude ...
[A/N: The tag "they do exist" does not refer to Jedis. :P Amusingly, "mrs exasperation" also doesn't refer to my mother. I swear it all makes sense! Most of the time.]
We just had another one of those If You Would Only Try Harder moments. It's not that she necessarily blames me for my problems or actually says that I could solve them all by myself if I made a bigger effort - she understands now that something is probably "broken" in my actual body* and that my mental issues are more complex than she thought, too. I only get this impression from her when we are discussing an isolated incident rather than the whole picture, such as an appointment that I missed. She remains convinced that I could "make an exception" for those if I really put my mind to it, that I should at least be able to "overcome" my difficulties occasionally because other people occasionally go to work in spite of having the flu as well, and that sort of thing should be perfectly possible for everyone as long as it doesn't happen too often. >_<
I can see the logic behind that, honestly. It's like, if you usually don't get up until 8 am and then one day you suddenly need to catch a plane at 6, of course you will grit your teeth and "just do it" this one time. There's no question about it, that's how life works. So I totally get why she thinks that this should translate to my situation faultlessly, but no amount of logic will make an untrue thing true.
She has a couple of catch phrases relating to this, you know. "Don't try, just act" is perhaps the most infuriating one - only Yoda gets to say anything like that, okay?! If you're not Yoda, then freaking forget about it. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRYING AND DOING IF YOU LITERALLY TRY AS HARD AS YOU CAN, ARGH. No matter from which direction you look at it. "I did it" means that you tried and succeeded, whether you use the word or not - what makes it so hard to imagine that the exact same process could sometimes result in failure??
It's important to be aware of one's own limitations in order to be open to the possibility of working around them. A slightly more reasonable person recently said that she was impressed with my dedication to finding such alternatives. "[Forcing yourself to stay awake the second-to-last night before an appointment] is an awfully huge sacrifice to make," she went on, "you certainly can't be accused of lacking motivation." And you know what? She is right. I never thought of it that way before, but in fact I go out of my way to achieve success through unconventional means. If I didn't do that - if I only ever applied my motivation the traditional way due to believing in some ridiculous, idealistic Jedi crap - then I'd be wasting my life running headfirst into walls all of the time.
Not that it doesn't still happen, mind you. And try as I might, I cannot find a way around every single wall that presents itself to me, either. Motivation isn't magic! They should teach that in schools.
*I don't like to use the word "broken" under normal circumstances, but in this case it's the perfect fit due to the nature of her attitude ...
[A/N: The tag "they do exist" does not refer to Jedis. :P Amusingly, "mrs exasperation" also doesn't refer to my mother. I swear it all makes sense! Most of the time.]
