I have this habit that seems weird to me, I watch myself in real time. But not in a mystical out of body sort of way. More like I’m living in the moment and narrating it simultaneously. Almost as if there’s a second version of me standing a few moments of time behind my little universe with a notepad taking notes on my facial expression, timing and tone of my voice. It’s sorta like self reflection, but sometimes feels more like an annoying surveillance van whose inhabitants are passing judgment. As for what that looks like. I’m in a meeting, someone asks a question I’ve actually thought about deeply and I can feel the fullness of the answer in my head. Up there my answer is complete, layered with nuance and connections to dozens of other ideas that matter, it’s all there, sharp, alive and crystal clear.
Then the uneducated hillbilly in me kicks in and what
tumbles out seems more like a bad sketch of what was a detailed blueprint, “as builts”
included. I hear myself speaking in
partial sentences, safe sentences, watered down sentences that don’t match the architecture
I’m carrying in my head. So, there I am, blathering and I get to watch
myself do it, which somehow makes it even worse. It’s a punishing dichotomy, the tension between
struggling to say that thing in my head, and the harsh judgment I place on myself
for not being able to effectively articulate the thing – even though people say
I did.
That looks a bit like this
As I’m sure everyone has done, I replay the conversation afterwards. And then thought, that is not what I meant, not really, you know that feeling. Your mind writes the director’s cut later, with better wording and pacing, better clarity, better courage. But in the moment, you get the theatrical release, supposedly edited for safety, rated PG, and sometimes missing the best scenes. The frustrating part isn’t that I am short on thoughts, I am drowning in them, about everything. Sometimes I have nothing to say, and sometimes I have too much to say, and I can’t always translate it fast enough into a language that makes sense. Sometimes I think my CPU is underpowered and my RAM is gummed up with memory leaks. And yes, the more I examine it, the more it stacks, exponentially.
The torturous part is, intellectually I see it so clearly and
my emotional self doesn’t give a shit. And
of course I know what that battle between Id, Superego, and Ego is called, intrapsychic
conflict. In less clinical terms the Id is
instincts, impulses and desires. The Superego
represents rules, morals, should/should not, and guilt. And there right smack in the middle is the
Ego, trying to keep the peace between these competing factions, the referee if
you will. My ref is old and worn out, but
still stands back up every day. I think
he has started taking supplements because I feel he is doing a better job as I get
older.
I’m not sure where in my journey I started to notice that perfection
wasn’t helping me, it was choking me. I saw
this more clearly in my work life but it was present in my personal life too. My overthinking brain kept trying to craft
fully formed thoughts in moments when all that was needed was honesty and forward
motion. In all of that I realized the struggle
wasn’t communicating, the struggle was with my own expectations of myself. Somehow I expected my words to arrive clean,
properly ordered, debugged and ready for prime time. What in the hell kind of standard was that, especially
when the best conversations are the ones that are simple and free flowing.
The kind you have at dining room table, or in a hallway at work
with that trusted coworker, or even under an old Jalopy while you’re changing
the transmission with your best friend. The
places where nobody expects a perfect sentence, from me or anyone else for that
matter. And yet there I was, drafting
white papers and developing formulas when all the people or person really
needed was the Smitty version delivered with honesty and compassion. Perfection isn’t a virtue, it’s a fucking traffic
jam the likes of what we see on the 5 in LA at rush hour. It just sucks!
Learning to speak without fear has been less like flipping a
switch and more like walking a long arduous path to the top of a high perch. While at the trail head the path looks flat
and easy but once ya get going you realize it is full of hidden obstacles and
blind corners. My intellectual self keeps
trying to sprint ahead, convinced the faster I move the faster I’ll get to
perfect. Meanwhile my emotional self is chugging
along at a much slower pace and less worried about beating the time but learning
to be OK with wandering aimlessly and enjoying myself.
I used to try to outthink the journey, engineer it into a straight
line. I was missing the point, its about
the journey, not the destination. That’s
where the learning happens, the acceptance of what is happens. That’s where the texture of our lives is
created. And somewhere along that winding path, I realized
the journey wasn’t about finding my words at all, I already have those in my
head. It was about finding a different
way of treating myself.
Talking, it turns out, isn’t a performance, it’s a draft and
we need to give ourselves permission to speak in drafts. It’s supposed to be rough the first time, and
it gets worn smooth over time with practice and patience with ourselves. When the words are messy, wrinkled and sometimes
without a flow, I have found people understand me better, not because I polished
it but because it was real. I am still
learning the little narrator in my head does not always have to be a real time critic. He can be a partner, someone who can learn to
say, good start instead of you blew it. And
I want him to learn how to say the only way you fail is if you stop trying so,
please follow Mr. Rogers three keys to success - be kind, be kind and
be kind, only ensure you are being that to yourself too.
Maybe the words will never arrive fully formed and polished. Maybe for me they’re meant to meet me halfway,
there between Superego and Id firmly in my Ego. Maybe that’s the work now, letting the three parts
of me sit at the table without trying to outshout each other. Letting the words come when they are ready, asking
all three to be human and kind with each other. I guess that conversation is
also part of the ride. And maybe this is
why I so much more like typing, when I’m doing that, it feels like all three of
us are finally in concert with each other.
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