Procrastination and Perfectionism (Sorry, Mr. Weinmann)

First off, I know this might make a few people angry and a few might stop reading this post altogether, but “perfectionism” is not something someone suffers, it is just an excuse. Nothing more. Anybody who claims to be a “perfectionist” should also claim to be terrified to make mistakes, to loathe looking stupid and maybe not so keen on new experiences. A person who feels anxious and afraid most of the time and a person who does not really have a lot of faith in themselves. It is a wall we willingly build to try and hide our own fears and insecurities and lack of faith in our own abilities, but it is also a wall we build to try and contain those same fears and insecurities and lack of faith from contaminating the aspects of our lives that we do think we control and handle pretty well. (At least the parts of life we believe we can fake.)

This is personal knowledge. Hard-fought and hard-won personal knowledge. I am a perfectionist, and for most of my life I have believed it is a badge of honor to struggle mightily toward perfection. Even when ALL evidence points conclusively to the contrary.

It is my goal that every post I write has some sort of lesson or small bit of knowledge, at least I hope. But this post is more of an apology. I am sorry, Mr. Weinmann. Very, very sorry.

In 7th grade Social Studies, we were assigned our very first research paper. Mr. Weinmann was my teacher and he was awesome! I loved the way he taught and I looked forward to his classes. But a research paper? In 7th grade? Dang, that definitely took away some of the joy. We were given the rubric for the reasearch paper at the beginning of the semester and we had the whole semester to finish the final copy. We were to check in throughout the semester to make sure we were on track, but in the end, our final copy was our responsibility! It was also a HUGE percentage of our grade!

I did not do the research paper. I received an “A” in Mr. Weinmann’s Social Studies class.

I did not know how to do a research paper. Even if I tried, it would not be that good. If I could not get an “A” on something, what was the use of trying? What if Mr. Weinmann read my research paper and realized that I was not as smart as I pretended to be? What if it was not “perfect”? What if I tried and failed?

These are only some of the thoughts that caused me to procrastinate. But they were enough. More than enough in this case and so many others in my life. And the crazy thing about procrastination is that eventually it DOES give you an excuse. It did for me back then, and if I let it, it will for me now. Eventually, there was too much work!

In my 7th grade mind, and even today is some ways, I could not REALLY fail if I did not try. Because I was such a good student in every other way, I somehow convinced Mr. Weinmann that I did hand in a research paper and that he somehow had lost it.

Mr. Weinmann suffered because I was too scared to try. I was too scared to even begin. I have suffered every day since. I am sorry, Mr. Weinmann. I am very, very sorry.

 

We are Failing our Kids…

https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/10-reasons-american-teenagers-are-more-anxious-than-ever.html

I read the attached article this past weekend and it struck a nerve deep within my soul. As a person deeply committed to education and the “success”, however it might be personally defined, of young people in this society and worldwide, I have seen the truthfulness of these words in devastating effect. However, what might not be so clearly apparent is that we are creating anxiety in our children because, we as adults, are lacking the ability to deal with stress and anxiety for many of the exact same reasons. It seems highly unlikely, almost inevitable, that if we feel anxiety in our own lives and lack the skills and abilities to effectively handle the anxiety and move forward in a positive manner, that we have any chance of effectively helping our kids not to feel the exact same anxieties in their own lives.

In my limited experience in education and dealing with young people in a school setting, I can state with certainty, if we truly are interested in helping our sons, our daughters, our students, our future, the work needs to begin within ourselves. There is no way I can effectively help a young person or offer any assistance in dealing with anxiety if I don’t have the ability to effectively handle my own anxiety.

Our kids are feeling anxiety because we are feeling anxiety. If we truly care about the young people in our own families and schools and the societies in which we live, we need to be certain we are setting the examples and living the lives that will benefit our children in very real ways. Just don’t tell our kids how not to feel anxious, show them.

 

The Edge

You will never know all the battles an individual is fighting. Be kind, compassionate, seek to understand and never be afraid to offer a smile. There is often no way to tell those of us standing “at the edge”.

A few hundred yards in front of me I could see the open water, a threatening black; an ominous warning framed against a thousand different shades of grey of which most wintry days in Wisconsin are made. Although the ice had begun to melt and there were some hints that another springtime would make an appearance sooner than later, on this day there was a strong wind and enough bite in the air to freeze the tears upon my cheeks before they had a chance to join the ice beneath my feet. The wind-crusted snow crunched beneath the shit-kicker boots I always wore at this time of my life and formed perfect prints leading from the shore of the life I used to know to the open water now before me. I remember thinking, looking back at the prints of those boots, my prints, my life, how appropriate it was that the coming spring would wash everything clean, everything anew. Nothing would remain.

No pain. No tears. No more suffering. No more dirty shit-kicker bootprints to blemish the world in which I did not belong.

The tears swimming in my eyes began to blur the differing shades of grey upon the horizon into one thick blanket, slashed across the middle by the slow-moving blackness of the open water that cut the huge expanse of frozen water into two huge slabs.  A hundred yards away. Just. Keep. Walking.

Something was wrong. This was not the way things were supposed to happen. I was an athlete. I was smart. I was handsome. I had lots of friends. I had a good family who loved me. The world had been kind to me and my future looked promising. In my sophomore year, my dad had taken me to the west coast so we could tour USC, UCLA, and Pepperdine University. Penn State and Columbia were also being considered. I was not supposed to want to die.

My legs were saying no. They would carry me no further. Everything within my body and soul was saying NO by now. My eyes were so continuously soaked with tears I could only see grey, black and the diamond-like sparkle of the paper thin ice dancing just above the cumbersome current that moved below. I remember the heat of my body disappearing; as if my body was trying to prepare itself to welcome that first icy breath that would not contain the proper mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and all the other components that had once sustained my life. I stood thirty yards from the edge. Waiting.

CRACK! The ice broke. My heart stopped. My legs faltered and I began to fall.

The amount of noise that a large piece of ice can create as it breaks up in the springtime is shocking. Terrifying, actually. I can still remember that moment. Everything stopped; the tears, the crying, my breathing, my heart. I think I may have suffered my first mini-heart attack, and I was only 17. I was going to die.

The ice I was standing on had not broken. But the ice all around me was breaking up.

I walked onto the ice that day not wanting to live any longer. I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want to live anymore. I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want to be weak anymore. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I didn’t want to hurt the ones I loved anymore. I didn’t want to be a failure anymore. I didn’t want to pollute the world with my fucked-up teenager thinking anymore. I didn’t want to cry, to scream, to rage anymore. To feel pain. To be so awkward. Unwanted. Unneeded. Worthless.

I was 17 years old on the day I walked to the ice’s edge. The ice didn’t want me that day and the world had plans for me that I could never have known. I am grateful.

The thing of it is though, even now, at 43 years old, I am NEVER that far from “the edge”. I am destined to dance along its periphery, and this is something of which I must always deal, along with so many others.

Why I write…

This blog and these words are for anyone currently in the world of high school and for those who may have already finished high school but can still remember…

I choose to share these words because I remember how difficult high school was for myself, and how at certain times, I felt totally alone and lost and maybe (I was pretty stubborn and still probably would have fought any advice people offered) would have benefitted if someone I could respect had offered some similar stories. I don’t know if these stories will make a difference. Hell, I am not even sure if anybody will read these stories, but they are offered.

I offer these stories freely and with an open heart. I offer these stories because I worry about the students with whom I work and all the students around the world I do not know, who simply might just need to hear, “It is going to be alright.” I write because it makes me feel better to look back and see so many obstacles and to know I still overcame. I write to give hope and confidence that they can overcome also. I write because I worry about the world that we all share and want to try and make it a better place than it is today. I write because I feel that stories create that most delicate of threads that links us all, and I want to be part of that connection. I write because I can… I share because I want to… I need to…

Benefits of Anxiety and Depression?

I am graced with a daily opportunity to work with some students so “paralyzed” by a fear and/or anxiety, that permeates every day they are in school, and probably out of school as well, that they are often unable to even enter a classroom in which they belong, much less function at an acceptable level. I enjoy working with these students and work to try and give them the abilities to create the success of which they are capable. But I also find myself asking questions, “What differentiates these students from the other students who roam the halls in this school?” “Does not every student, in fact, every teacher, every human being that has ever roamed these halls, not also experience anxiety?” “Why are some people able to overcome, or at least effectively deal with, the anxiety they experience and some become literally “paralyzed?”

I can not speak personally to anxiety. Actually, if you were ever to meet me in person, I would probably never admit to ever having any feelings of stress, anxiety, hopelessness, inferiority, desperation, or any other “feelings” or “effects of feelings” that might be considered as negative in any way. However, I do have these feelings and thoughts. There is no way to deny this. There are days when I find it hard to physically get out of bed because my body is too heavy and my mind has become like jello left too long in the sun. There have been many weekends in my life, probably even weeks, that I have willingly contained myself within a room or an apartment, unable to physically, mentally and emotionally walk out the door. If I am honest, I deal with depression more than I will ever admit. However, because of this invisible struggle (I hope it is invisible), I am a better person.

Why do I deny experiencing depression in my life? What if the majority of the negative effects I experience from depression (a lack of focus and energy, a general inability to deal with average life tasks and a background irritability that is not generally present) are generated simply because I “feel bad about feeling bad?” The physiological and psychological effects of depression and anxiety are certainly real and are not disputed here in any way. I am only asking if the problems and difficulties caused by these conditions are exacerbated simply because myself and others “think and feel” like we should not experience these conditions. To me personally, if I admit to experiencing depression, it feels like I am admitting to being weak and “less than” a person who may not deal with such a condition.

I live in a neighborhood right next to a beautiful lake. I often take walks around the lake. The other day I “forced” myself out the door of my apartment because it had been a tough week and I had been in “hibernation mode” for too long. In walking around the lake, I saw ladies talking faster than they were walking, which was impressive, because they were walking pretty fast. I saw men on their cell phones conducting business that simply “could not wait.” I saw runners, checking their Fitbits, in order to confirm their “healthy status” for the day. I saw a child in a stroller, faceless, because all I could see was the iPad blocking all interaction with the world outside his (maybe a boy, maybe a girl) stroller.

I also saw myself. As I was walking around the lake, I realized something I had never realized before. Feeling a “bit down” was a blessing. I was alone. I had time. I had no responsibilities and I had many opportunities. I was free. Free to notice the actual serenity of the lake which I am privileged to live so near. Free to walk at the pace I set. Free to notice that Fall is an inevitability, no matter how nice the Summer has been. Free to see leaves that were no longer green but had begun to burn colors, vibrant colors, other than green. Free to think, my own thoughts, whatever they might be, without the burden of having to express them to another. Free to feel grateful. Free to be thankful…

I became thankful for the sadness that had so limited my access to this outside world in the last few days. As I (forcefully) walked around this lake on a beautiful day, I experienced a sincere thankfulness for being me: sad me, happy me, free me, all of me. I am the person I am today, the person I want to be, because I suffer from moments of depression in my life. There is value in these moments. Because I suffer from depression, I am empathetic. I am patient. I am a good listener. I have time to think. I am ok being alone. I appreciate beauty. I value my relationships. I am good at my job. The list goes on. Because I suffer, I am better. Depression actually allows me to be a better person, and for this I am thankful.

Middle School Heartbreak

Junior high school is brutal. I was probably considered one of the “cool kids” in junior high, and there are things I probably never experienced. Today was payback. My heart was shattered to a million pieces, and all I could do was sit and watch.

Honors Language Arts. A brilliant student. Unique. Likes to discuss philosophy. Has Buddhist leanings. An assignment is given. Get into groups of two or three for “partner novel writing”. Nobody wants to be her partner. Tears. Red eyes. Tissues. Defiance. Shaking hands and red, puffy eyes overrule the “I’m good” answer. Students watch. Teacher glides around the room.

I sit in my chair, thinking. Judging those callous students. Yelling privately at the teacher, “HELP HER!”. I sit in the back of the room, just like junior high. Unable to console. Not even knowing where to begin to pick up the shattered pieces of two broken hearts.