Captain's Blog, Stardate 2013.03.04, U.S.S. Enterprise - Who are you reporting to?

I don't like blogging just to take up space and check it off the list. I find I feel like I've cheated.  So there are numerous things every week that I could write about, but given that my priorities don't change very much, it feels like I've worn the same path over and over for a while now.

I did a dumb thing today. I was moving heavy things around the garage, and I didn't even stop to think that I was putting lots of power through my knee until it started tightening up. and some more. and some more. Now I am faced with a decision, what should I do next? This is the frustrating part. Do I ignore it and keep going, and show it who's boss? Or do I treat it gingerly and give it all the care I can think of? Is it at the point I think it is? Or is it something I can push through?

That last question is really sticky, because you're never sure if it's something you can't push through until it's far too late, and you've done a huge amount of avoidable damage. I don't know. I really don't.

I've been really frustrated with myself lately. For many things, and yet it comes down to the one root cause. But let's just say it's many little things.

So let me tell a story of what happened this past saturday night. It starts with me driving through the storm, and I see a car just off the road up ahead. It was snowing and such, so I pulled over and asked them if there was anything I could do to help. It was then that I recognized that one of the boys there. he was someone I went to school with briefly in the past. I will be brief and just say that my experience with him was rather unpleasant, and if my peers are to be taken at their word, I was not alone. So I proceeded to offer my assistance, pulling his car out of the ditch, being as polite as I have ever been.

Afterwards, I was a little unsettled. I had just spent the better part of an hour assisting a person whose interactions with myself in the past had been so negative. A small part of me was wondering why I did. Most of me knew there was a good reason, but I just couldn't put it into words yet. It was a little while after that the conclusion drawn was as follows: It doesn't matter who it was. At all. It never did.

Now here's where I bring this whole post together. I hope.

I didn't stop to help because I had seen who it was. I stopped out of habit. I do so, because I expect myself to behave a certain way. This is but one of things that result from the standards I set for myself. So it makes it  important for me to see that I need to ignore who he was, other than just someone who's day I could make a tad better. It does not matter who it was, because I know that I would have done the same regardless of who it turned out to be, and that's the end of it.

Which leads me back to the title of this post. In each of the four almost unrelated things I have discussed so far, it all comes down to the same thing. Who am I reporting to? Who's rules am I breaking or following? Who puts an X on the things I've done wrong?

I think it should be my future self.

Richard Leung
http://amadmanspursuitofclarity.blogspot.ca/