annie's microblog

Get comfortable with discomfort.

If you can tolerate more discomfort than anyone else in the room, you’re the most powerful person there.

If you can stay in the awkward pause a little longer
If you can hold the eye contact
If you can ask the unspoken question
If you can give your own answer
If you can let people think whatever they want to think
If you can talk to the person being ignored
If you can start the conversation
If you can walk away from the conversation
If you can refrain from explaining yourself
If you can acknowledge your own bullshit
If you can tolerate being in no one’s good graces
If you can laugh at your own embarrassment
If you can be wrong
If you can find stillness in swirling emotions
If you can be the odd one out
If you can risk going first
If you can take the scrutiny
If you can be as honest as you can be right now
If you can dance alone
If you can say no to what you don’t want
If you can say yes to what you do want
If you can forgive yourself for not knowing
If you can hold on to your values
If you can choose to please your best self

You got it.

One of the things I like most about reality, as far as I understand it, is how all the very big things are made of very very small things.

And the closer we look at the very small things, the more we find. Even smaller, even tinier. We keep peering in further, looking for something like the heart of it all, and we keep subdividing parts into tinier parts and the tiniest parts are mostly just… space. And that’s tricky to comprehend, honestly. I can only think about tiny things made of mostly space by imagining them to be bigger. But they’re not. They’re so tiny.

And we’re so tiny. We’re full of verve and rage and ideas, and we’re doing and being and moving, and sometimes we feel big. But mostly the world feels big. The challenges feel big. The changes, the obstacles, the problems, the distance from here to there. Those all seem big, bigger than us. Certainly bigger than me, alone.

But all our biggest things are just one tiny thing connected with another tiny thing, and on and on, until the collection forms something we see as a whole. A complete, big thing. But it isn’t one big thing, impermeable or indestructible. It’s many many tiny things joined together.

If you can put it together, you can take it apart. One tiny piece at a time.

And if it falls apart, it can usually go back together the same way. One tiny piece at a time.

The nice thing about rebuilding something is you get a chance to do it better.

Months ago a friend said, “Well, I don’t take anything I think very seriously.”

This made me pause. Because I knew, immediately: I am the opposite.

I take everything I think quite seriously.

Well, okay, not everything. But warnings, alarms, and worries. Little mental flags waving. Internal reminders. Mental lists. Questions and what-ifs. I tend to take all those pretty seriously.

I don’t want to miss anything important. I don’t want to miss a signal that matters. But there’s so much noise. And it’s hard to differentiate: noise or signal. Inflated what-if anxiety that’s unlikely to occur? Or very-possible scenario that almost certainly will occur if I don’t notice and do something to prevent it?

It’s not that hard, I guess, to differentiate. But it’s hard to do in an instant. To sort things out, I have to think about them. Run a little filter. And until the filter’s been run and I can toss a worry in the not-at-all-likely pile, I take it as seriously as a real signal.

A few weeks ago I watched a documentary about DuPont. The filmmakers discussed how easy it is for companies like DuPont to use toxic chemicals because of the U.S. taking a “‘risk-based’ approach to regulation, which puts the burden on government officials to prove that a chemical poses unreasonable health risks before restricting it. The process can take years while evidence of public harm continues to mount” (Source).

Chemicals are considered safe until the EPA proves that they aren’t safe. So companies are free to poison us, our earth, and our water, profiting off sickness and destruction, until the under-funded and over-burdened regulatory arm of our corporate-controlled government can get enough proof together to say, “Hey, um, don’t use that, okay?”

This is, of course, absolutely backwards.

Corporations should have the burden of proof. Should not be allowed to use chemicals without proof of their safety. Should have to fund the research (which should be conducted by non-interested third parties) needed to determine if any chemical is safe for use or not. Then, and only then, the EPA should review a corporation’s proposed use of a chemical and approve or disapprove it. The end. [If you agree, vote. And don’t vote Republican.]

And now, allow me to create a convoluted analogy which helps me: my overwhelmed filtering process should not bear the burden of proof. Instead, the thoughts themselves should be required to have evidence of validity to even get into the filtering process.

My filters need filters.

Because very few of my thoughts are serious.
And almost none of them are truly urgent.