So with the myriad of changes I am attempting to bring about in my life there is a concept that I would really like to keep in mind in all my interactions. Basically the idea is that just because something isn’t a big deal to me, doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal. This is the fundamental underpinning I am building my attempt letting things go. I don’t want to get all wrapped up in being frustrated with other people doing what I believe is stupid, or get angry because my values and goals are not the rest of the worlds.
So let me give a few examples from my marriage. My wife and have hugely different opinions on a lot of things, and very different reactions to a variety of situations, one of which being how we react to getting sick. For my wife she typically takes a day or so off work to rest and recover. During which time she tends to feel like crap and just rest. In the most recent instance she was telling me how bad she was feeling and stopped mid sentence and said “I know it’s no big deal to you, but..” Which is where I cut her off, because the truth is it is not a big deal to me. I have to be extremely ill before I let it get in the way of pretty much anything. I don’t mean throwing up, I mean hallucinations. This is probably not the best way to deal with being sick, but for me when I get sick I never even consider not going to work, or doing my work outs. In my mind the best way to get past some virus is to burn it out of my system with work and exercise. However, what I am realizing is that for some/most people this is not going to get them better, and while vomiting and sickness are minor distraction to me, for my wife it’s a much bigger deal, and that’s fine.
The flip side of that coin comes in with my struggles to lose weight. Self control is a huge deal for me. It seems like it shouldn’t be, because I manage to get up the motivation to run, or do my weight training everyday, so you would think I would be able to keep myself from eating something bad for me. For whatever reason I can’t. I can keep myself from buying food I don’t need, but if it is in the house I WILL EAT IT. For my wife, she can have all kinds of snack food and candy around and have no problem eating a handful of chips, or a serving of Sour Patch Kids. For me the only way to deal with a half full bag of sour patch kids is to consume it, and I will, without fail, 100% of the time. I can not stress this enough. We could eat some of the candy, and she could hide it so I wouldn’t eat the rest, and I would search the house till I found it. This is not an exaggeration, I have done this. Much the same thing will happen if sun chips happen to be inside my walls. It starts with me telling myself I would just like a handful, getting one, eating it, then deciding another wouldn’t hurt. This goes on until the bag is empty. My wife has a hard time understanding it. She has frequently told me I need to get some self control, not understanding that for me the most self control I had was not buying it. If it was in the house it was a big deal, I was going to eat it, and while I am slowly limiting that absurd reaction in myself it is still a big part of me. After a long conversation she has been great about helping me out by taking the chips to work, and keeping that sort of thing out of the house.
I guess all I am trying to illustrate by those examples is simply this. What matters to you doesn’t mean a thing to me, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Just because there is something in you, something that makes you tick, or some trigger than you can not overcome but no one else seems to have a problem with, doesn’t mean it’s stupid or pointless. A friend of mine who is trying to lose some weight too comes to mind. I called her up to see if she had been working out, she grudgingly told me she hadn’t because of a huge number of factors that were stressing her out and distracting her from her goal. In the middle of her explanation she started in on the “I know, I know, I can’t let life get in the way…” ect.. I think she feels the need to say that because I am so OCD about working out. However, while I may be in a place where I have the discipline to work out everyday, not everyone is in that place. If you’re not ready, willing, or wanting to do what I do, it doesn’t mean it’s no big deal. There are things I make into a mountain you would consider a mole hill and vice versa, so I’m not going to make light of something someone else considers a huge obstacle just because I can move past it, because tomorrow the situation could be reversed and I would like benefit of the doubt.
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