03-30-2019, 09:17 AM
And some more observations from this past week:
- Had some sexual dreams, for the first time on 3.3.1. For a couple nights in a row, no less. And then things returned to the same emotional childhood stuff that usually hogs and clogs my REM cycles.
- My response to work requests has been changing on 3.3.x. I get very few requests, these days, given my tendency toward pre-solving problems before they come up, but, of course, despite my best efforts to head my own work stress off at the pass, I can't expect to predict and invisibly pre-address everything, so requests do inevitably come up.
My long-standing response pattern has been to say no to most requests, find safe ways to turn the no into what sounds like a yes, and then counter-propose a reasonable and equitable compromise. This negotiation strategy is particularly useful when dealing with someone who's conflating experience with having a specific problem and experience with solving such problems, as the difference between knowing the problem and knowing the answer can be worlds apart. (And, thanks to desperation, people who know the problem can often be very insistent and impatient about exactly what they believe needs to replace the problem, no matter how much of a boondoggle their solution would be.)
But, more recently, instead of trying to mitigate request pitfalls with objection and compromise, I start with more of a maybe (rather than my usual no) and stop trying to protect everyone from their own mistakes. I've stopped seeing myself as the hammer who needs to stop them from hammering their own hand into a bloody pulp, if that's really what they're heck-bent on doing. But, by extension, I'm also not seeing myself as the hammer that's preventing them from hammering everyone else's hand into a bloody pulp either, so I'm not so sure that this is a positive change.
On one hand (no pun intended), I've greatly reduced my personal stake in others' decisions, which means that I care less about saving them from (or, more accurately, controlling) the outcome of their actions; on the other, I'm giving them the latitude to make decisions (unchecked or, at least, less checked) that could negatively affect myself and others. Similarly, on one hand, I've stopped presuming that my predicted outcome will be the likely outcome, while, on the other, I'm taking the chance that the requesting party's opinion has equal or greater value than that of the person with information and practical experience that those who made the request simply don't have.
I'm guessing that this dichotomy may relate to disconnecting from negative stress, from not taking the actions that I perform at another's request as my personal responsibility. My problem with that seemingly positive shift in thinking (and the crux of the dilemma) is that these are cases where I am still responsible for my actions and my micro-decisions within that other person's larger decision. I'm still personally involved, no matter how disconnected from the stress (or the accountability) I may want to be. "Just following orders" has never seemed to be an adequate excuse to abdicate personal responsibility or a reason to blindly agree without compromise before, so it's difficult to see why it should be now. Subs themselves are an easy example of how my decision to execute someone else's idea, however helpful or harmful their idea may be, is still my responsibility.
I also wonder if FRM or PTPA might play a role, possibly resulting in me feeling less concern for the potential negative outcome of questionable decisions. While that could be a positive in the long run, it may (in the short term) lead me to stand idly (or, worse, actively contribute) as many suffer the consequences of someone else learning the error of their mistakes. They may need to learn, and they may need to fail to do that learning, but, when their decisions affect others and not just themselves, the consequences do seem more important than whether they learn not to make the mistake a second time. And it only complicates where I fit into things if I've been tapped to be the instrument of their mistake because they're incapable of making that mistake without me. (If, in fact, it's the mistake that I believe it to be.) My past compromises were where we previously met in the middle and negotiated something mutually acceptable, not where I just checked out because it "wasn't my decision" or because they "needed to learn their lesson" or "needed to fail on their own." The compromises were about damage control on a group decision, not me denying others the right to learn from their own decisions.
It's almost like unconditional surrender by way of IDGAF, and apathy has never really been the badge of honor for me that it appears to be for others. I don't need to do as others do or think as others think (which is good, as a lot of it confuses me anyway), but, as long as what others do and think affects those around them (including me), I still need to GAF about what others do and think, if only to adapt successfully to the consequences of their thoughts and actions, to their responses to my thoughts and actions, to my environment, and to the situation. No (hu)man is an island. Ignoring a genuine problem that someone else has caused (or insisted that I cause) doesn't make it un-happen, nor does it make me impervious to its real-world repercussions.
My hope is that this is just me trying to distinguish left from right in one of 3.3.1's suggestions, find a balance between opposing suggestions, and/or learn to be more motivated by my knowledge of likely consequences than my past concern for likely consequences. I don't mind that this is unlike me so much as I mind that I'm suddenly disowning responsibilities that, whether on not I ever wanted them, are still mine, just as much as they were a few months ago when I was unquestioningly owning them then.
