Transgender people suffer unique discrimination and oppression. Many more people struggle with their social identity.
Anyone who failed to achieve their goals in a major way has a struggle.
Definitely “achievement or lack of achievement.”
Besides the whole forever-ness of the situation, the two things I struggle with the most in regards to my mother’s recent death is that I never get to do more to: a. make her happy b. make her proud of me. I haven’t married or had kids yet, or even bought a house, and these are all achievements I expected to have the time to share with her.
Mom’s death puts a spotlight on this, but I have always closely linked self-worth to accomplishments. Looking back, I can see that in myself as young as age ten.
Thank you for sharing. You accept reality.
I refuse to accept reality that I have wasted the first half or more of my life – I am 45 now.
I have achieved my ideal…sort of… I’ve proven myself in both my profession and my avocation. I’ve got a lot of good friends and a happy social life. I can write a story, a poem, and a song; I can draw a picture of, say, a bear, and people don’t say, “Um, is that, like supposed to be a horse?”
If I die tomorrow, I don’t have any signal regrets.
My “bucket list” has only one item: a short flight in a light aircraft, out over the local mountains.
I’ve done what I came here to do.
All three, because it changes frequently. It’s a very complicated subject with me.
I wanted to be a writer or a media producer, but I happened to get a PhD in Mathematics I hate.
The true inner Ambivalid.
Oh, thanks, I did not need that.
There are 168 hours in a week and you work for twenty of them. Even allowing a few for sleep and other bodily functions, there’s enough time for other things. So if you want to be a writer, then write.
Edited to add, who knows? Perhaps you have the Great American Novel in you.
NO!
I am Jewish – I may have a talent of Franz Kafka. Now I am off to finish my report and tomorrow I am starting writing my third book.
You know CCitizen that’s an interesting question.
For me its a little bit of all, but really none of them.
To explain; Mom always wanted me to be either a Physician or Attorney, Successful Business Man would have sufficed in a pinch. BLECH!
But Mommy Dearest would not allow me to pursue my interests at a point when I feel it was critical in Jr. High and High School.
Looking back now, I somehow managed to do all the things I wanted to do or envisioned myself doing as a child, Army Guy, Mechanic Guy, Tattooed Guy, Biker Guy, Dad Guy, Married Guy, Divorced Guy, Average Shmuck Guy with a White Picket Fence and 2.15 children, 3.6 pets divided almost equally between cat and dog with the small remainder devoted to bird and fish, etc. This is my life now, my Ideal if you would born in the unclear vision of childhood and borne to fruition in adulthood. So yeah, I achieved my goals even if by accident, and my Ideal, even if it isn’t very grand, but I’m happy with it so I must be living by my ideals also even if they are a bit tarnished with age and use.
Isn’t that closer to the first two thirds of your life?
You’re the math PhD, figger it out.
ETA: pro-tip: don’t forget to carry the one.
I am not a “goal setter”. I’ve been able to accomplish just about everything I’ve wanted to so far, but it’s not like I’ve ever had a long to-do list of stuff.
Despite feeling accomplished, I still feel like I fall short, that I am defective somehow. I am immature enough that I sometimes compare myself to other people and allow myself to draw damning inferences from the comparisons. I’ve gotten better at not doing this as I’ve gotten older, but it still happens. So, to deal with it, I’ve decided to just accept that the negative feelings will always be there, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some illusion of choice about how I handle them. I can spiral into self-hate, or I can get off the couch and mow my backyard or work on a manuscript or create a piece of art. I can let the feelings of inferiority make me walk with my head down, or I can thrust my chest forward and walk with an air of confidence, appreciating the fact that even if most people in the room are “better” than me, there’s no way I’m the absolute worst person. I can be down on myself for a few hours or so, but I don’t have to broadcast it to the world. I don’t have to let a bad self-image define me.
Sometimes I see myself in a good way. Sometimes I see myself in a bad way. But most times, I’m completely neutral about the person who is me. If someone were to ask me to sum up how I feel about myself, I’d say, “monstro is a’ight, I guess.”
No idea what your Jewishness has to do with anything. But my larger point is if you wanted to be a writer, then nothing’s stopping you from writing.
(Hell, given the number of posts you make here, you’re already writing. Just channel all that typing into producing something.)
He sees himself as Jewish; which he feels overrides his identify as Russian (where he was born) or American (where he lives now). It’s part of a worldview that is difficult for a me (a Jewish American with Russian ancestry) to understand.
I just use a mirror.
I understand now; he’s Jewish, so he can’t be a writer. After all, there are absolutely no Jews allowed in the Writers Guild. (Or is is that writing is treif?)
I think his point was that he could never write the Great American Novel because he’s not an American. It seems to be a big peeve of his that people assume he’s American simply because he lives in the US and is an American citizen.
If so, it’s a ridiculous nitpick. So if not the Great American Novel (which is just an expression, after all) perhaps he could write the Great Russian-Jewish Novel By An Autistic Depressed Math PhD. Or is that not specific enough?
None of the above? I have little interest in norms of any kind and I’m just not much for putting myself on some sort of scale and seeing how I measure up. As for goals; my only real goal in life has been to cause as little harm as possible. I think I achieved that but its one of those things hard to quantify to others or even internally really.