Slightly Remarkable

Although I am not exactly a psychiatrist — nor do I claim to be — I do spend a healthy (or unhealthy, depending how you look at it) amount of time meditating on myself in various ways. Searching within myself is often both revealing and enlightening, and I have discovered that, besides getting to know myself better (which, believe it or not, does not exclusively come natural), I am often able to improve who I am based on my findings. And yes, I have done this for a long time. A friend of mine at one point mentioned that my introspectiveness (which she did not see as self-centeredness, thankfully) would eventually dissipate once I “found my place.” I have yet to do so. Perhaps some eventually reach a point in their lives where they are satisfied with who they are, but I can never seem to achieve a level of change that makes me satisfied — each change stimulates more thought and thus more change.

Before you accuse me of egocentrism, allow me point out that Benjamin Franklin was similarly introspective. It’s not self-absorption or self-glorification. It’s an attempt to discover personality flaws, fears, and inadequacies within oneself, and of course, make the necessary lifestyle changes to remedy or eliminate these undesirable (yet natural) traits. It’s self-improvement.

With this in mind, let me tackle a couple of things. First of all, since I began driving several years ago, I have always had a slight precaution with being on the road. I don’t refer to it as a fear, really, because at the time it was a lack of confidence. With time and experience, driving has become second nature. Yet, interestingly, I have come to consider the possibility of an accident a very real fear of mine. The primary reason I now consider it a fear — although, by no means do I allow it to hinder me from driving — is that I frequently dream about getting in a wreck. In fact, I have begun keeping a track of how and when I dream of hitting another vehicle. Typically these dreams are not situations that are particularly dangerous — I dreamed last night that I hit a red truck in a parking lot — but, nevertheless, I have the fear of the event actually taking place in reality.

Having said all that, I am beginning to discover that this fear is merely an effect, not a cause, and may largely be based on my personality and upbringing. I’m not an overtly cautious individual, but I am careful, particularly if dangers are involved. My fear of an accident seems to stem not from the accident itself (although, to be clear, I am not jolted at the idea of being physically harmed in a wreck), but rather it seems to be from an overall fear of making a mistake, which in turn, seems to be directly related to the perfectionist aspect of my personality.

In other words, you might say that because I am a perfectionist, I react cautiously to taking any action that may result in a mistake. If I am unprepared, I see taking such an action as a possible mistake, and since a mistake seems to make me feel greatly disappointed, I always seek preparation prior to implementation. This seems logical and sensical, but the reality is that perfection is not always a possibility, and I have found that very difficult to accept. However, being conscious of the fact has made me realize that I should be prepared not for an action that could potentially result in a mistake, but for a mistake itself.

To be clear, I haven’t nailed down the exact method to qualify whether or not I am, in fact, a perfectionist. I cannot argue that the evidence I gave above indicates that I am a perfectionist, as that would be circular reasoning (these fears are because I am a perfectionist, and I am a perfectionist because of these fears — yes, quite circular). I will say that I have witnessed the personality trait of perfection in my mother, and that even if this is not a genetic quality, having been raised by her would surely affect to what degree I seek perfection (in this case, 100% of the time).  A quick Google search suggests that most people can only pinpoint the effects — not the causes — of perfectionism. However, I seem to meet all the qualifications perfectly.

We’ve all heard the phrase “play to your strengths” before, and that is my intention at this point. If I am indeed a perfectionist by nature, then instead of working to eliminate an entire aspect of my personality (and, by extension, my person), shouldn’t I attempt to channel it in a positive way? I believe that is the case, and since my perfectionism has been very helpful in providing wisdom (or at least avoiding circumstances in which much wisdom would be required) and prognosis, I can’t say that my fear of mistakes or accidents is a really bad quality to have.

Be advised, I’ll be keeping this blog updated with details regarding my nightmares — well, that’s a strong term. Better said, my dreams about making mistakes that result in accidents. My dreams seem to be a manifestation of my fears, after all, as I rarely dream at all otherwise.

Speaking of driving, I have noted a curious change in behavior over the last few weeks. Whereas I used to be the guy in a four-cylinder car driving 90mph on the feeder and taking 45mph turns, I seem to be very content driving at whatever pace the person just ahead of me permits. I find myself no longer complaining when people drive 10 – 20 mph below the speed limit, and instead of going around them, honking, and quite plainly displaying the extent of my American Sign Language vocabulary (which, naturally, consists exclusively of flipping them off), I am content to drive behind them at whatever pace they choose. I haven’t been able to relate this change to anything else, but I have noticed that my frequent and sometimes painful anxiety attacks, which often leave me seeking the nearest restroom, have subsided for the most part. My guess (and I may be wrong) is that I am a calmer individual overall. I may just be familiar and comfortable to a point where I am no longer anxious, or I may be more relaxed for some reason — perhaps a lack of stress. It’s an interesting thought and requires much more investigation, so I’ll leave it open for the time being.

In other news (or, perhaps something remotely interesting to you, as a reader or random Googler), I have made some fairly significant changes to the site. I have upgraded to Wordpress 2.7, which is really shaping up, and installed a few plugins and widgets (specifically, you’ll notice that the Delicious links on the homepage have fully visible comments, and the homepage sidebar includes tweets). I plan on making additional changes sometime soon and separating these longer entries to one side, with the more frequent, techie, and often more interesting posts from Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, and so on. And no, I don’t expect this means a complete redesign, although that may happen sometime in the future. I certainly don’t want to revert to a mostly black-and-white design like most of the more famous bloggers have (for some odd reason — if this is a trend, I can’t wait for it to end, Shaun Inman/Jason Santa Maria/Andy Clarke/others!). I’m not saying it’s ugly, but their older designs were so much cooler, and now it seems they’re just too popular/busy to make their own sites look nice (or maybe they find it frivolous?).

See you next time, my infrequent and possibly non-existent readers. ;-)