So far this year has been an obstacle course, as I’ve mentioned a few times here. Work has flared up significantly as I shift positions and my company makes fairly major changes on an organizational and product level; priorities have been shuffled accordingly, and even though I’m getting better at juggling many things at once my ability to remain organized and focused still leaves a lot to be desired; and I still have a problem with saying “yes” to too much, underestimating the amount of resources and time each new thing will take. I can’t pretend that I’m on the verge of figuring things out, but I do think I’m making steady (if slow) progress addressing everything.
The latest hurdle has been entirely tech-related. My laptop went out of commission when the screen was broken, and the backup laptop I brought out of storage worked for a little while before simply turning off one day and never coming back on. My desktop has been having crazy performance issues where the hard drive is pegging at 100% usage for no discernable reason, and I’ve eaten up so much time troubleshooting it. Depending on where you go, it could be the “Show me Windows tips” feature in Windows 10, the Superfetch or Windows Search services, Google Chrome’s pre-loading capabilities or Skype doing whatever it is Skype does. It could be the AHCI driver for the Intel chip I have getting stuck in a loop, or it could actually be malware. I’ve tried nearly a dozen things for the past two weeks without success; Ryan and I eventually determined it has to be corrupted files on the HDD causing the OS to freak out.
Long story short, I’ve purchased a new laptop (at a great deal) and a new solid-state drive for the desktop that should improve things drastically. Hopefully, I’m out of the woods for now with my tech issues. But that still leaves me with a ton of sunk time where it was difficult to get anything done.
Life has been stressful for a few months now, and it doesn’t look like things will abate any time soon. Stepping back to take stock of the first four months of my year, I’ve noticed that despite a minor crash last month I’ve been holding up pretty well. I’d like to think that improved diet and exercise, better sleep and a recommitment to my meditation practice has helped with that a lot — and it has. But also, my perspective has shifted on being kept off my feet and I think this more than anything has helped me become more resilient.
The world is not a perfect place. I consider myself an idealist; there are ideals and goals that I strive to achieve and I genuinely believe the world would be a better place if everyone did the same. Not necessarily MY ideals, but some set of values that they would like to embody. I won’t even pretend that the things I care about are the things that others should, too.
But those ideals can often get in the way of my ability to deal with situations where I need to adapt on the fly or respond quickly. If something goes wrong and my instinctive response is to sink into anger or depression because my vision of an ideal world has been challenged, that’s a problem. Of course it would be great if all of my stuff worked, or if other people respected my time and boundaries, but that’s not quite the world we live in. The only world we have is the world of what is, and we are best served accepting what is in front of us and determining the best thing to do with it.
That’s not to say that I don’t get angry or frustrated; I certainly have these past few weeks. But it’s important for me not to get attached to those emotions, or the idea of a perfect, fair world where things are the way I prefer. I allow myself to express my frustration, vent a little, and then try to deal with whatever I need to. Giving myself space to be frustrated is important, but so is letting go of that frustration so I can see the situation as clearly as possible.
There’s always a solution to a problem. Sometimes, that solution is “Walk away from this!” or “Learn to accept this will not work the way you want it to.”, but there’s still a solution. Really bringing this in to my understanding of the world has helped me stick with a problem longer without feeling helpless, exasperated or depressed.
This is actually something I learned at my day job in tech support. Learning how to troubleshoot is an incredibly useful skill, and while I’m not great at it I’m leaps and bounds over where I was just last year. It’s a set of techniques that can be adapted for just about anything — figuring out tech problems, or home repairs, or car problems, or even why audiences aren’t flocking to your blog or story or comic. Being able to step back and look critically at something helps us to pinpoint problems and address them as best as we are able.
For example, my current serial for the Jackalope Serial Company isn’t one I’ve been terribly happy with. After some time taking the story apart, I’ve realized that my protagonist is as bland as Wonder bread, and that the supporting characters who’ve been introduced aren’t quite engaging enough to pick up the slack. This is mostly because I set out to be a discovery writer, which really hurts me when trying to write a story on a regular basis. In order to be excited about the story, I have to know where the plot is moving. In order to know that, I have to understand how the characters relate to one another and the world around them.
The Jackalope Serial Company hasn’t been a rousing success exactly, but instead of giving up on it (like I probably would have a couple years ago) I’ve been able to troubleshoot some problems and come back more excited and with more direction. This latest run might not live up to my ambition, but that’s totally fine. I’ll take stock, learn what’s wrong and try a few more things to fix it.
Detaching from ideals about the way the world should be or our own meager abilities has really helped me have a healthier relationship with my mistakes and flaws. And even though 2016 is going to stay super-challenging, I feel that the challenges are shaping me up instead of wearing me down.
From the Desk of Jakebe T. Rabbit 