I See You Self-sabotage

Lack of evidence to the contrary, writing is constantly on my mind. And yet, here we are, posting for the first time since June 2020. How is that possible? I know that I like the idea of putting something out there but I’m having a hard time with commitment. By that, I don’t mean I’m a rolling stone, born to be free, unfettered by common bonds. Quite the opposite. My problem with commitment is that I take it very seriously. Failure to live up to a commitment is, for me, a source of intense shame. When I break a commitment, I imagine myself a sort of a spiritual Hester Pryne, my forehead branded with a psychic scarlet F (for failure) that is visible to the entire world.

So the reason I haven’t written a post since the middle of last year had to do with commitment. If you read the very first post of this blog, I made a commitment to post something every Monday. I even touted the fact that making the commitment would be a call to action. I was a new person, ready to take control of my writing career and propel myself to achieving my goals and dreams. I was just doing what so many other blogs, books, motivational speakers, TED talkers, cognitive-behavioral therapists, neuroscientists, and celebrities of all stripes tell you to do which really boils down to, “just get on with it.”

The problem is, I just didn’t give any thought to what would happen the first time I failed to post on a Monday. My immovable object (Mondays) collided with my irresistible force (shame) and the universe ceased to exist in a blinding flash of white light. Eventually, the stunning effect of that collision began to fade and things started to come back into focus. I decided to examine where things had gone wrong. I examined my immovable object and, to my complete astonishment, I noticed that it wasn’t immovable after all. The thoughts go something like this:

“Who made up this rule?”
“I did, of course.”
“So why can’t you change it?”
“Because I made a commitment.”
“A commitment to who?”
“My readers. No one is going to read/follow a blog that doesn’t honor its commitments.”
“What readers?”
“Ouch.”

So let’s break it down then. I started a blog and immediately put rules in place that would probably result in failure at some point. Sure enough, as soon as the first non-post Monday came and went, I was transformed into a failure unable to live up to his commitments and I threw in the towel. I blame Marc Maron for this. Him and his two podcasts weekly since the dawn of time. Sure, it worked for him but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life by now it’s that there’s really no such thing as one-size-fits-all.

Perhaps this all seems silly and obvious to you. It certainly does to my girlfriend. She’s never been able to understand why I think and act the way I do about this kind of thing. On the one hand, she reaps the benefits of my commitment (we’ve been together almost 30 years) but doesn’t truly understand how the way I commit can make my thinking inflexible. It’s like battering yourself against a door trying to push it open only to have someone point out that in order to open the door you simply needed to pull. In hindsight, it seems obvious and makes you feel quite stupid but there was just no way for you to see the solution for yourself.

Anyway, I had a point to all of this which is to recognize that, for me, making rules is often a subtle way to sabotage myself. Most of the time, I create the rules first and then, as a response to those rules, fail to even begin a project having already placed seemingly insurmountable goals into my path (e.g. you can’t start that until A, B, C or you can’t do that without X, Y, Z). I’m far from unique in this regard. Going forward, this blog is live again. I’m not committing to Mondays, however. I’ll write what I feel and post when I’m ready and that will just have to be good for you and me.

I see you self-sabotage and I’m calling bullshit.