It’s on me…

I am sad and discouraged. I simply want to make things better and I want to help people. But to do these things I always come to a point where I need people to appreciate and respect what I am doing. If they do not, though I may be working very hard to help and make things better, it is still ultimately my failing. That said, from their perspective I find a lack of mutual appreciation and respect is for one of two reasons:

  1. They don't believe I can help or make things better.
  2. They don't want me to help or make things better.

  1. If they don't believe I can help or make things better, perhaps their perspective is valid, (perhaps they do know better), and if my efforts are consistently spurned, perhaps I should accept that possibility and extricate myself from the circumstance.
  2. If they don't want me to help or make things better, it could be for any number of reasons ranging from discomfort and fear of change to loss of perceived control and importance to apathy and laziness; and if I am consistently powerless and/or unable to make a positive difference, I should accept this infirmity, consciously recognize it as such, and also extricate myself from the circumstance.

This is why I continue to struggle in jobs. I find myself making a positive difference for a time and then I find myself on a plateau either crowded with fear and egos or (if I ascribe to #1 above) the pinnacle of my achievement specific to the circumstance. If crowded with fear and egos, the larger and/or more entrenched the constituency and the greater the fear and the bigger the egos and the less the empathy, the more likely I am to feel unwelcome and the less likely I am to continue any sort of upward trajectory and the more likely I am to become sad and discouraged. And if it is (in actuality or practice) the pinnacle of my achievement, even though I want to make a positive difference I have to ask, what's the point? I have consciously worked to lower my expectations and find some satisfaction weeding and clearing the plateau, but repetitive busywork is not progress, it is maintenance. And I am not satisfied with maintenance.

So either way I am sad and discouraged and once again I feel I have no choice but to separate myself from a circumstance in which my expectations for myself are not being met. Again, it is important that I recognize this; that the expectations I have are for myself. Though my first inclination is often to fault or blame others for a lack of progress and/or a lack of support, I am the one driven to effort toward improvement and I am the only one able to judge those personal efforts. When I fail, the failure is absolutely on me. It is too easy to blame others for my lack of progress but it is absolutely not my place to expect others to work against their priorities. So in this regard the outcome is consistent - it is once again time I move past this personal failure and work to find a circumstance in which I can make a positive difference…

…until the next plateau.

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