|
|
July 21, 2003 - 9:19 a.m. So what do you do when you feel like you're in a rut? Sure, sure you're supposed to shake things up, right? Try out a new hobby, take up a sport, make new friends...blah blah blah. You know sometimes you just feel stuck, like no matter what changes you make you'll still just end up in the same place. You know you've been in this place before and it just seems like whatever you do you just end right back at the start, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. I've been thinking about this this weekend (that's awkward isn't it) and I�m sure I�ve come up with a revolutionary theory. No one has ever come up with this theory, no way (heh). In any case, just to be sure, I�m hereby copyrighting my theory The Monster-b Theory of Ruttiness (�#032075). Here�s the theory: At several different points throughout your life you will hit a plateau, a rut, if you will. While each rut just feels like a rut (sometimes you feel like a nut�), it�s a different rut. What you notice is not where you�ve come from or how you�ve changed, you just notice the rut. The standing still, the uneasiness that comes with dissatisfaction feels the same, even if it�s different, even if you�re different. A rut always feels the same no matter how different the situation. A lot about adult life is the day-to-day junk you just have to do, paying bills, going to work to pay those bills, cleaning out the litter box, organizing the sock drawer�etc. etc. ad infinitum. So no matter how much you�ve changed, how much bigger or better or different your home/paycheck/sock drawer has gotten you just see the daily drudge behind them. (Ok, stay with me and don�t worry, this isn�t a Pollyanna, step back and smell the flowers kind of entry) The only times you notice the surrounding elements involved with a rut is when you feel like you�ve taken a step back. Otherwise you just feel like you�ve stalled in some predestined progression we�re all supposed to make. When things aren�t going well, you focus on the step back, the smaller sock drawer and not on everything that shaped you and changed you to get you to that sock drawer. (Boy, I�m just throwing stupid metaphors all around here aren�t I?) I think sometimes you have to just take a step back and think that maybe the smaller sock drawer is just what you�re going through right now and that it�s a necessary step to take to get to what you want. I mean, you hear the expressions �You always want what you can�t have� or �The grass is always greener�� and of course hearing them when you�re in a place that you don�t want to be is the least helpful thing ever, well at least next to someone just walking up and thumping you on the nose for the hell of it. Do we ever get to that place where we want what we�ve already got? Where we�ve got the greenest lawn in the neighborhood, take that Joneses? I don�t know. I�m pretty sure I�ve never felt that way, but I do look back at previous times in my life and think �Ah, things were so much better when I was�� Why can�t we hold on to that? This brings us to Part II of The Monster-b Theory of Ruttiness (�#032075-A). I think sometimes (and this is just me free associating and completely drawing on my own experiences and I�m sure several of the 12 people who read this will completely disagree, but it�s my journal so stuff it, heh) a rut can come from having what you want. You�ve done it, you�ve got the job, the sock drawer, the friends, the significant other and with all of that the rut. I think the tricky thing is realizing what kind of rut you�ve got. Do you have the �I�m dissatisfied with my life rut� or the �I�m doing the same thing everyday because I�ve got what I want rut?� Obviously, there are other kinds of ruts as well, but this is a generalization and I think a majority of ruts come down to a version of the two above. I think the key is in the diagnosis and once you�ve got that figured out then you can determine what you need to do to make things feel less, well, rutty. At that point you�re on your own, but don�t feel that just because you�re in some kind of rut that you�ve failed at something, because I don�t think that necessarily the case. You�re just changing and what you�re doing in your life just hasn�t yet caught up with how you feel. Once those two things match up then your rut will go away. Now, if I can just figure out how to do that�
� Wondering:Why the Microsoft spellcheck recognizes "rutty"
Doing:Diagnosing a rut
Wishing:That I will recognize the good life if I get it
Travel back in time True Art - June 21, 2004
|
