In Defense of the Personal Diary
Keep things strictly business. Keep personal problems to yourself.
Why is it this is my immediate response whenever communication is unsuccessful in my life?
Because it keeps me safe. Because it works.
I have a pretty small-knit group of people I open up to about personal issues. I’m not talking about my personal life; I’ve always been pretty open about challenges I’ve faced and experiences I’ve had. I’m talking about the “here-and-now” problems that I’m trying to overcome.
There are maybe 3 people I can trust enough to really open up to, and it depends on the given moment and the subject matter and their current mood. More often than not, I decide it’s best to leave them out of my problems and face it myself. For all I share, there’s an iceberg-worth below the surface that I’m not sharing, and it’s better that way for two reasons:
People don’t owe me an ear to listen with. People don’t owe me an answer and they aren’t obligated to care as much as I do. Expecting that from them is foolish when I usually am not in a position to offer that much back to them anyway.
The solution to every personal problem will always be the same. It all comes down to me.
What am I willing to do about it?
What am I ready to take responsibility for?
What am I going to change about myself?
When am I really going to start acting on these decisions and stop talking about them?
Pretending like there is any alternative to the two situations above is naïve and pointless. You are the boss of your own life. The world doesn’t owe you anything so stop expecting the world to care.
I will always genuinely appreciate when someone goes to the effort to reach out and say they care, to tell me how much I mean to them and that I matter. I personally try to offer a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on for those I love and care about when I am able to, after all, it is my deep desire to make people feel happier and better about their life.
But when it comes to my personal problems, I need to learn to stop turning to others for help. I figure out much more when I sit and meditate on my feelings and my reactions and step back to rationalize the situation. Immediate reactions and feelings are for diaries, and perhaps that is what I need.
And what a better time to start? I want to practice writing and the New Year is upon us. I think it’s time that I quit burdening those around me and that I keep my thoughts more private.
I had a realization this morning which was:
Relationships should be a professional team effort with a “give-and-take” understanding.
Passionate love affairs are for art, they have no place in a long-term relationship.
I can give myself freely and passionately to the things I create, for those things will never disappoint and they have a time and place to be loved and obsessed over.
Relationships involve real people who don’t have the energy for long, obsessive love affairs and energy-sucking interactions. They long for a sense of regularity and comfort. Successful relationships are built on strong foundations of trust and support and love that goes deeper than flaming passion, (but of course, must first be made with that same fire). Successful relationships have a rhythm and they are an agreement between two individuals to take up the same spiritual space and live happily and equally there together. When that balance is compromised, problems arise.
My flaming emotions severely compromise that balance.
I’m tired of it.
This blog has served as an “online diary” of sorts for quite some time now. I hope to see that change and that this, too becomes more of a relationship with any readers out there. To preserve the image that I want to project into the world, I will likely rely less on mediums like my blog to express my feelings and rely instead on good ole’ pen n’ paper.
The real question is…. What should this diary look like? Aesthetics are everything…
Time to go journal shopping. :)
