The Part About Particularly Discouraging Days

I'm not sure whether this architect was having a Particularly Discouraging Day or just hoping for a funny story about that one time some idiot walked out this second story door. Either way, this does not bode well for whoever lives there...

Today was a Particularly Discouraging Day. In all honesty, for me, these come about once every 14-21 days and are usually directly correlated to how long it takes for me to be able to sit down and go through my emails (aka start my day at work) and to my caffeine intake (too much caffeine makes me go haywire and I can't think anymore ... which is the direct opposite of most people, who require caffeine to be a functional part of society).

Contrary to what the name seems like, Particularly Discouraging Days are not the ones where everything goes wrong no matter what you do. Those are just bad days. Particularly Discouraging Days are the ones where just about nothing goes wrong, but nothing quite goes right either, so that the whole day feels wrong. Generally, it's just an off day. And there's usually no helping it.

But these days are the ones that get me down the most.

Part of it is probably my control issues. Being lowest on the totem pole means that the majority of what I do at work is out of my control, but that also means that when the things I am in control of go wrong, I feel a crazy amount of guilt/disappointment in myself for not being able to perform to the best of my abilities. I feel out of control in an environment where I should ... just ... be better at things.

There are certain things that being a personal assistant helped me immensely with pertaining to this job. But, then, there are certain things that being a personal assistant couldn't have helped me prep for before this job- and those are the ones that take me most by surprise. It's just that there are some moments where I feel so far behind the ball, and that the things I'm being told are so obvious, that I can't help but feel like I'm not doing a good job; and thus, I tend to get discouraged when the not-so-good things compound on one day.

So I was mulling, and brooding, and generally thinking way too much about failure on this Particularly Discouraging Day when one of my coworkers asked how I was doing. I'm not sure it was meant to be a hardcore Jesuit CP moment, but I answered honestly and told her my day had been Particularly Discouraging.

Even though it was late, and both of us were just passing through the kitchen on our way to other things, she took the time to reassure me and remind me that we are "at capacity" (aka extremely busy) right now.

Essentially: bad days will inevitably happen. We are running full-steam-ahead, and things won't always go exactly as planned. The most important thing is to keep things in perspective. Not in the general life sense of "I have a job, I have a steady income, I have food, etc." (though, that does help with putting things in perspective), but in the "you are here for a reason" sense.

My reason for being here is that I am qualified for this job. Even qualified people have stumbles and mishaps along the way. I am here to learn something. I have no idea what, at this exact moment, but there is something here to be learned and taken from this trial by fire. As much as I think it's a bit of a cop-out to just accept the notion that "God doesn't give us anything we can't handle" as the reason why things don't go our way, I do think that every new day is a time to learn something I didn't know yesterday.

I won't say that I'm looking forward to my next Particularly Discouraging Day, or that I'll figure out the lesson to be taken from it next time, but I think the next time there's a Particularly Discouraging Day, I'll be able to think back to tomorrow and remember that- even though it feels endless at the time- a Particularly Discouraging Day only lasts for one day.

"I think you just gotta have the bad days, so you can love the good days even more." --Alexander from "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"

--Tiffany

The Part about Thriving With Self-Doubt

I passed this little garden on my way to church today. I was struck by a couple things ... mostly the randomness of it -- people don't usually have a frivolous garden flowing out of their windows. As a child of the 'burbs, I'm used to backyard gardens, lawns, assorted potted indoor plants ... even my mom has a flourishing indoor orchid forest. Basically, everything is neatly contained. I don't know if containment was the initial plan for the plants in the windows, but if it was, I would probably consider that attempt a failure. Just saying.

Anyways, moving on from that tangent. I passed that little garden and thought to myself: of all the places, that garden is thriving in the middle of a desert, in the middle of a concrete jungle, in the middle of a heatwave (another one this year), in the middle of a drought. Go plants! Way to persevere. 

I guess I'm slightly in awe of something as simple as a plant being able to thrive in an uncompromisingly hostile environment. There's a part of me that hopes I can emulate that. Not that my current environment is something that can be considered hostile, but I think I can say it's possibly in the range of not-ideal. Yeesh, do I sound like an entitled millennial when I say that. Whoops. Everything I actively try to avoid.

But seriously, I think it's no secret I have no desire to be in this work situation a year from now. But, I definitely can't be counted as "unhappy". I'm at a workplace I love, working with people who I enjoy being around, getting exposure to the exact kind of work that I'm interested. Definitely not unhappy. Definitely interested and enjoying my life right now.

If that sounds a little like I'm also trying to convince myself, maybe it's because I am? Maybe a little bit?

Short story: this -- in the here and now -- isn't what I want. It's like a quarter of the way to what I want, but even still, it's very much in the realm of "not what I want". Everyone keeps telling me to keep playing the slow game, keep my nose to the ground, and keep working hard, because that's how I'm going to get what I want. The silly millennial in me whines that I want it right now, but I've always been pretty good at staving off the need for instant gratification (thank you parents).

Basically, I have no idea if I'm going to be able to persevere for this year. I'm so, so, so, so afraid that when the time comes, I can't be those thriving plants. It's strange, for a millennial, I have my fair share of entitlement issues (ish), but I think I'm also victim to an equal amount of semi-paralyzing fear that boils down to one thing:

If there's one thing I want more than getting what I want, it'd be to actually deserve to get what I want.

What I have right now already feels like a dream, and I'm not sure what I did to get this. So how do I thrive?

...
...
...

Yeah, I got no good answer to that question. I think ... check back with me in a couple months? Right now, I'm a little too close to this semi-debilitating fear to be able to think clearly around it.

I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to have to find a way to be the plant.

I will persevere.

--Tiffany