The big picture
In almost a year of pottering around with this blog and the concept of confronting my fears, I’ve discovered, to my delight, that the list of things I don’t dare risk is short indeed. Sure, there are things that make my pulse pound and my stomach flip. Heights. Spiders. Inexplicable rejection. Incurring someone else’s bad opinion. (That’s a tough one, that is. I have to remind myself daily that what other people think of me is none of my business.) But it turns out not much intimidates me so much that I literally can’t bring myself to do it.
Which is good. Because I’m beginning to realize that the things I really need to worry about are the things there’s no point worrying about. The ice in the Arctic is melting faster than even the worst-case scenarios had predicted, and the new worst-case scenarios now involve coping — figuring out which disasters to respond to, which hungry mouths to feed, which thirsty people to whom to provide safe water — rather than trying to keep the worst from happening.
Sigh.
Now that’s intimidating. And yet what can I do but accept it, do my tiny part, and hope it adds up?
Yes, I feel guilty about getting on a plane later this week to go halfway around the world. All that CO2 wasted for my whims! But I’m not going to cancel. The people whose artifacts I’ll be digging up could never have imagined what life would be like 1000, 1500, 2000 years in the future. They may not have imagined life would still exist; the medieval ones, at any rate, expected the end of the world to come a lot sooner. Standing in a ditch, digging up their ovens, their rubbish pits, their skeletons, and their … um … fossilized poop is a good way to remind myself that I have no idea what life will be like 1000, 1500, 2000 years from now. The world may all go pear-shaped in my lifetime, or in the next century. Then again, it might continue on in some way I can’t even begin to imagine. All I know is that by the time I’ve receded into history, the world will be as unimaginably different as our world would look to the Romans, the Saxons, or the Vikings.
Looked at that way, what, really, do I have to be afraid of?
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (4)There’s no “I” in “supply”
In the last week, I’ve turned down two opportunities to help out other people because there wasn’t anything in it for me.
Hold your horses. Before you start accusing me of being a calculating, selfish user, let me elaborate.
In the first case, I got a request for an introduction to a professional connection from someone who’s been entirely off my radar for several years. No hi-how-ya-doing, no “I know we’ve been out of touch but I was wondering if you’d be willing to…” — just the expectation that I’ll open up my virtual Rolodex on demand for someone I haven’t seen or spoken to since John Kerry was the Democratic candidate for president. I’m all about logrolling, but at least butter me up a little first!
In the second case, a friend of someone I dated many years ago contacted me to ask if I’d be willing to offer emotional support while he goes through a rough patch in his personal life. I’m sure the friend meant well, but the request was just…odd. Let’s set aside (as if that was possible) how a man might feel about having his dirty laundry aired to an long-ago girlfriend. I’ve exchanged holiday cards with this ancient ex now and then over the years, but that’s pretty much the only contact we’ve had since the Pleistocene. I’m not inclined to offer up my shoulder to anyone but my closest friends — and certainly not someone who no longer knows me and might be tempted to idealize me as the girl who got away, now grown up into a woman-shaped bandage for his emotional wounds.
I politely responded to both situations by saying I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me to do what they were asking.
This is a bigger deal than you might imagine. I used to worry so much about whether saying no was “nice” that I considered a ringing telephone a demand, not a request, and felt guilty if I screened my calls. I didn’t feel the slightest hesitation over saying no this time. No second-guessing, no regrets. Apparently, I’ve finally given myself permission to be discerning about where I offer up my contacts, my shoulder, my time, and my effort.
The energy has to flow both ways. I’m not a battery. I’m not willing to drain myself to charge someone else up.
Filed under progress, Uncategorized | Comment (1)