#195 - Knowing Better (sde iv no. 2)

In my twenties, I worked really hard to stop lying.

I tried to be more honest with people, have the muddly conversations that get a little hairy in the middle but ultimately bring everyone closer via the truth.

Fessing up helped too. Telling people that I had lied opened me up to judgement and doubt – what if they never believed me again even though I was telling the truth?

But we don't get to control other people. We only get to try our best.

(And it's the most heartbreaking thing to understand that everyone really is trying their best and sometimes their best still hurts.)

It's fair if people stopped trusting me, I hadn't been trustworthy. Just because I stopped lying didn't mean I shouldn't suffer the consequences that came with dishonesty.

I had been faking it for a long time.

Not reading the books but passing the tests, bullshitting my way through assignments, assuming that just because I was trying really hard and thought of myself as a kind person meant I wasn't capable of being malicious.

But that doesn't absolve me of making mistakes. Of being callous. Of assuming nothing I could say would stay with people the way that other people's cruelty had barnacled for me.

Being open to growth is frightening when you've spent a huge amount of energy trying your best to be perfect.

It can feel like you're admitting you're wrong, that you were just fooling everyone (even if it turns out we weren't pulling it off as well as we thought), and when you don't have a great sense of self-worth it can be hard to let go of the idea that people won't stick around when you're no longer perfect.

As if that's what any of us are seeking to get from friendship or a romantic partner. As if everyone doesn't literally resent the people who do manage to pull off the illusion of perfection anyway!

But I was good at faking it. I could usually clear the 10% gap via delusional confidence and abject panic at having to admit to needing help. The bridge was most of the way across, so I never bothered to learn how to build I just...jumped and really hope it worked out.

And usually it did! But when it didn't I fell on my face and then splatted 20 feet below into mud water and recover took way longer than if I had been thoughtful in the first place.

Plus, I was embarrassed about the whole eating-it-on-the-bridge thing that had happened. (A weird comment that I could tell landed sideways, panic and defensiveness during feedback, making callous statement that relied on me hoping other people got that the joke was that I would "never say anything like that".)

Starting over and trying to rebuild my understanding of...being a person in the world, a responsible citizen, a contributory mature adult has been humbling.

Good! So good and so much better than continuing to plow forward desperately seeking validation from the incorrect sources.

But hard. So hard. Rarely rewarding in ways that are immediately obvious...as a reward.

Oh good job! You're now upset because you had a really hard conversation with a friend and you don't get to rush the process and just Be Okay again because you're really trying to be honest and intimacy is scary because we're so vulnerable but it's worth it when it allows others to really know us.

There's grief, because there's always grief.

I wish I had known this sooner, I wish I could have done that better, I think I know where we diverged in trust and I want to fix it so badly if I could only–

But at some point we have to adjust.

Growth mindset.

Look at our actions as actions rather than building blocks in a personal narrative that gets shaken at any hint of change or critique.

See our days as constructed by blocks of how we're spending our lives.

Not get overwhelmed by how massive that makes each choice and put it in perspective of understanding constant growth and change.

We can't cling to the past. We have to keep interpreting our circumstances with the information we have now.

It all adds up. Habits take time to change. But the desire to live a truthful life isn't an easy task but idk we all need things to work on forever right – it's why people play golf.

An unwinnable game. We'll never be perfect but with practice, we can get better.