Things About the Whelm
"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be - whelmed?" - Chastity, 10 Things I Hate About You
I am some level of whelmed right now. I am overwhelmed with the amount of mental and emotional energy that I'm supposed to be putting into a lot of things right now, but I am underwhelmed with the payoff of said things in the near future. Sure, they're investments in the bright and beautiful down-the-road, or whatnot, but being an instant gratification kind of a girl, I find myself making up for the over and the under whelming by avoiding it all and throwing tantrums. Does being caught right in the middle make me just whelmed? Or is it cabin fever? I feel bad calling it that since I get out to do more cool things than a lot of people I know, and I really can't complain. Even so, here I am, discontent as always, complaining.
All the energy goes out, nothing comes back in except some piddly paychecks and well meaning criticism. It's frustrating. I'm not even sure what to look forward to because nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed. It's Friday. For some people, the weekend means a break. For me it means more work and instability than the other days. I've grown to distrust weekends with their shiny attractiveness and poor followthrough. They're just like every other day of the week. Disappointing. They just keep coming and going and I am stuck running in place on the slimy log of time as it rolls in the sludge, trying not to fall off into the pit of despair.
The problem I have, according to some of the self-help books I am reading, is two fold. 1) I give too many f***s about things I shouldn't (i.e. everything), and 2) I bought into the bull crap that life is supposed to be good, or pleasant, or that happiness actually matters. I'm trying hard to give less f***s. But I still can't understand why we're here if we spend the few years we have just being miserable so that we can die. And here we circle back to the meaning of life and ages-old rhetoric of "bringing glory to god" "being a good person" "making a difference" "earning a mansion in heaven along streets paved with gold and choruses of angels lining them - but no dogs because animals don't have souls" kicks in. Blagh. Meh. Poop the duck.
I want a life full of happiness like warm crusty sourdough bread with way too much butter and swirling glasses of dry red wine. I want dogs. I don't want to be a 'good' person. I want to make people laugh. I want to be a memorable person. I want to be making moments that make the meh days manageable.
For awhile, I was on the 'no bad days' band wagon. But I've realized that that ideal is just as unrealistic as streets of gold or being a good person. There are bad days. And bad weeks and bad months and bad years. Like my brilliant baby brother says, if all days were perfect, there would be no perfect days. It's ok that some days are bad. As long as some days aren't. I am trying to focus more on the 'no wrong turns' philosophy, that tells me that even meh days are serving some purpose down the road. Even if it takes EONS of suffering to get there. Meanwhile, here I sit, in The Whelm, with my bad days and my misguided ideals and misplaced f***s, waiting for something that I haven't quite identified yet. Probably sourdough bread.
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| it's a long road to... somewhere. |
I am some level of whelmed right now. I am overwhelmed with the amount of mental and emotional energy that I'm supposed to be putting into a lot of things right now, but I am underwhelmed with the payoff of said things in the near future. Sure, they're investments in the bright and beautiful down-the-road, or whatnot, but being an instant gratification kind of a girl, I find myself making up for the over and the under whelming by avoiding it all and throwing tantrums. Does being caught right in the middle make me just whelmed? Or is it cabin fever? I feel bad calling it that since I get out to do more cool things than a lot of people I know, and I really can't complain. Even so, here I am, discontent as always, complaining.
All the energy goes out, nothing comes back in except some piddly paychecks and well meaning criticism. It's frustrating. I'm not even sure what to look forward to because nothing is certain, nothing is guaranteed. It's Friday. For some people, the weekend means a break. For me it means more work and instability than the other days. I've grown to distrust weekends with their shiny attractiveness and poor followthrough. They're just like every other day of the week. Disappointing. They just keep coming and going and I am stuck running in place on the slimy log of time as it rolls in the sludge, trying not to fall off into the pit of despair.
The problem I have, according to some of the self-help books I am reading, is two fold. 1) I give too many f***s about things I shouldn't (i.e. everything), and 2) I bought into the bull crap that life is supposed to be good, or pleasant, or that happiness actually matters. I'm trying hard to give less f***s. But I still can't understand why we're here if we spend the few years we have just being miserable so that we can die. And here we circle back to the meaning of life and ages-old rhetoric of "bringing glory to god" "being a good person" "making a difference" "earning a mansion in heaven along streets paved with gold and choruses of angels lining them - but no dogs because animals don't have souls" kicks in. Blagh. Meh. Poop the duck.
I want a life full of happiness like warm crusty sourdough bread with way too much butter and swirling glasses of dry red wine. I want dogs. I don't want to be a 'good' person. I want to make people laugh. I want to be a memorable person. I want to be making moments that make the meh days manageable.
For awhile, I was on the 'no bad days' band wagon. But I've realized that that ideal is just as unrealistic as streets of gold or being a good person. There are bad days. And bad weeks and bad months and bad years. Like my brilliant baby brother says, if all days were perfect, there would be no perfect days. It's ok that some days are bad. As long as some days aren't. I am trying to focus more on the 'no wrong turns' philosophy, that tells me that even meh days are serving some purpose down the road. Even if it takes EONS of suffering to get there. Meanwhile, here I sit, in The Whelm, with my bad days and my misguided ideals and misplaced f***s, waiting for something that I haven't quite identified yet. Probably sourdough bread.