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There are lots of things I don't like about standardized testing-- or, more accurately, the way standardized testing is used-- but at the moment I'm thinking about the aptitude test we took in high school, the one where I got back the results and as usual I'd scored in the 98th percentile or higher in all the academic subjects, a bit-- but just a bit-- lower in some clerical or abstract subject I don't remember now-- and in the section headed "What your scores suggest would be good career paths for you" was a paragraph saying (and I paraphrase only because I can't remember the exact wording, but it basically amounted to this), "You have high scores in every subject area. You will excel at being WHATEVER THE HECK YOU WANT TO BE!"
Putting aside the problem that, no, I CAN'T necessarily be whatever dang thing I want to be, because this test didn't test for my complete lack of social skills, the question I'm thinking about NOW, at this PARTICULAR moment, is WHATEVER THE HECK DO I WANT TO BE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
(Aptitude tests also don't test you on how long into an all-caps sentence it takes you to figure out you have a caps-lock button).
See, it's increasingly obvious that my general dissatisfaction with life may have something to do with my complete inability to make decisions. Which they also don't really test you for on aptitude tests, even though technically the whole thing is deciding between A B C and D, because on those tests there is always one right answer. In real life there are billions of possible right answers, billions of possible wrong ones, and most of the time they're all a mix of the two. Everything is a decision, including what word I'm going to type here next, which is why I keep drifting off, looking at my One Book notebook and thinking vaguely that my doodle lady looks like she's wearing a diving mask even though that was Maddie's contribution and probably isn't anything, and Norah Jones just came on my Media Player, and I once decided Billy 'Arrison has a huge stupid crush on Norah Jones, and speaking of huge stupid celebrity crushes wouldn't it be nice if Martin Freeman was here right now I mean RIGHT NOW, HERE? and now "Getting Better" is on, and I thought about writing something about being a Beatles geek this morning, and my head hurts a bit, and now there are seven new Tweets on my Twitter tab why do I even have that thing open when I'm trying to do other things, and THIS IS ALL BECAUSE I COULDN'T DECIDE ON HOW TO START THE NEXT SENTENCE (but I did remember caps-lock that time).
But no, I think much of my life is wasted in indecisiveness. I debate what to make for dinner, and then end up just making spaghetti again anyway. I debate what I want to do with naptime, and end up doing nothing. I debate what writing project to work on and write nothing. I debate what WORD to write next and-- well, you already heard that one. I debate WHETHER TO GET UP FROM WHATEVER CHAIR I'M IN AND DO SOMETHING, BUT I DON'T AND DO NOTHING INSTEAD. This is a real time management issue, and I must fix it by, like, Doing Something, but I still haven't decided what that Something is.
So I asked myself What is it I WANT out of Life, anyway? If I'm going to start Doing Something, I need goals. But honestly? I can't even answer that question. I've got a family to be family-oriented for. I'm a librarian. I want to be a writer. There are lots of other people who have been all three of these things, so I don't know why I should HAVE to choose, but at the same time I feel unfocused at all of them. I need to strive to be GOOD at something instead of just mediocre at everything. I want to live like I have a CALLING, like it's my MISSION to be as awesome as I can be at what and who I am, but I can't quite figure out what that IS....
Problem is I like being told what to do. Not how to do it, but what to do. I want other people to decide what I'm supposed to be doing, and then I'll do it, and I'll do it quite nicely! Much of my life I've been accused by well-meaning friends of being a doormat, a pushover, of letting people take advantage of me, and I've never seen what they meant, but THIS IS WHY NOT! Because being a pushover implies that I WANTED something different than what I ended up doing-or-not-doing. And I didn't. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't CARE what I wanted. I just rolled with whatever everybody else wanted of me.
And so now I've decided I don't want that anymore. I want ownership of my life. I want to live FOR something. I want to LIVE rather than EXIST, in other words. I'm tired of rolling with it. Except now I have no idea WHAT to live for, WHAT paths I could Actively Pursue, WHAT decisions I can make about my life and where I can point it. I'm too used to rolling with it. And too overwhelmed with what Everyone Else wants of me.
I think I still want to be a proper writer, as opposed to someone who thinks best on paper/screen (what's the word for that, besides "in written form"? I'm going for something that's the opposite of "orally"-- does such a word exist?) but doesn't actually write enough. But then I think I have nothing to write. Nothing at all that needs to be said. Not really. Nothing anyone needs to hear. No real stories I'm dying to tell. Probably it's just because I can't decide what to write. But I can't justify making myself write crap when my house is a mess and my kids are alternately vegging in front of the TV, destroying the furniture, or locking themselves outside in the snow in their pajamas (yes that happened the other day). I can't write OTHER things when I've got One Book I could be working on. I can't write letters when I could be writing stories, and I can't read books when I could be writing letters, and I can't read the Internet when I could be reading books, and I can't ... I'm not even sure what I'm talking about now. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. And none of these things get done because I spend all my time worrying about the things I'm not doing. Or at least, waffling about the things I could be doing. Or at least, staring blankly into space not doing anything.
Anyway, there have been a few things on my mind this past week that I thought of writing a post about, but I didn't do that either. I've decided that I OUGHT to, next time, just to have made a decision, and be an active BLOGGER at least. I could live for blogging! Just to DO something! But...
...here I drift off, vaguely...
...because it's an appropriate way to end...
...and otherwise I wouldn't know when to stop...
...I still don't, apparently...
Now I'm dancing to Santana. I guess I'll go now.
EDIT: So, then I got all decisive and decided to wear my Ren-Fest dress to work, because dang I work in the kids' room and it's Halloween night and I'm ALLOWED, mostly because I can't think why not, and I TOTALLY FEEL BETTER ALREADY. Like, DANG, LOOK AT ME, I'M SOME KIND OF AWESOME. I think I just need to wear a Ren-Fest dress every day, so I'll be that lady buying groceries in February in a rather smelly and likely yogurt-encrusted Ren-Fest dress, and everyone will be like "So what is with that lady, anyway?" and I'll be like "I AM A SHIELDMAIDEN OF ROHAN!" and... I need a sword. You know, I've decided this is the answer. I just need to wear a costume every day. I'll alternate between Ren-Fest dress and Leia robes. Sword and blaster pistol.
Maybe I need a more practical plan.
Putting aside the problem that, no, I CAN'T necessarily be whatever dang thing I want to be, because this test didn't test for my complete lack of social skills, the question I'm thinking about NOW, at this PARTICULAR moment, is WHATEVER THE HECK DO I WANT TO BE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
(Aptitude tests also don't test you on how long into an all-caps sentence it takes you to figure out you have a caps-lock button).
See, it's increasingly obvious that my general dissatisfaction with life may have something to do with my complete inability to make decisions. Which they also don't really test you for on aptitude tests, even though technically the whole thing is deciding between A B C and D, because on those tests there is always one right answer. In real life there are billions of possible right answers, billions of possible wrong ones, and most of the time they're all a mix of the two. Everything is a decision, including what word I'm going to type here next, which is why I keep drifting off, looking at my One Book notebook and thinking vaguely that my doodle lady looks like she's wearing a diving mask even though that was Maddie's contribution and probably isn't anything, and Norah Jones just came on my Media Player, and I once decided Billy 'Arrison has a huge stupid crush on Norah Jones, and speaking of huge stupid celebrity crushes wouldn't it be nice if Martin Freeman was here right now I mean RIGHT NOW, HERE? and now "Getting Better" is on, and I thought about writing something about being a Beatles geek this morning, and my head hurts a bit, and now there are seven new Tweets on my Twitter tab why do I even have that thing open when I'm trying to do other things, and THIS IS ALL BECAUSE I COULDN'T DECIDE ON HOW TO START THE NEXT SENTENCE (but I did remember caps-lock that time).
But no, I think much of my life is wasted in indecisiveness. I debate what to make for dinner, and then end up just making spaghetti again anyway. I debate what I want to do with naptime, and end up doing nothing. I debate what writing project to work on and write nothing. I debate what WORD to write next and-- well, you already heard that one. I debate WHETHER TO GET UP FROM WHATEVER CHAIR I'M IN AND DO SOMETHING, BUT I DON'T AND DO NOTHING INSTEAD. This is a real time management issue, and I must fix it by, like, Doing Something, but I still haven't decided what that Something is.
So I asked myself What is it I WANT out of Life, anyway? If I'm going to start Doing Something, I need goals. But honestly? I can't even answer that question. I've got a family to be family-oriented for. I'm a librarian. I want to be a writer. There are lots of other people who have been all three of these things, so I don't know why I should HAVE to choose, but at the same time I feel unfocused at all of them. I need to strive to be GOOD at something instead of just mediocre at everything. I want to live like I have a CALLING, like it's my MISSION to be as awesome as I can be at what and who I am, but I can't quite figure out what that IS....
Problem is I like being told what to do. Not how to do it, but what to do. I want other people to decide what I'm supposed to be doing, and then I'll do it, and I'll do it quite nicely! Much of my life I've been accused by well-meaning friends of being a doormat, a pushover, of letting people take advantage of me, and I've never seen what they meant, but THIS IS WHY NOT! Because being a pushover implies that I WANTED something different than what I ended up doing-or-not-doing. And I didn't. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't CARE what I wanted. I just rolled with whatever everybody else wanted of me.
And so now I've decided I don't want that anymore. I want ownership of my life. I want to live FOR something. I want to LIVE rather than EXIST, in other words. I'm tired of rolling with it. Except now I have no idea WHAT to live for, WHAT paths I could Actively Pursue, WHAT decisions I can make about my life and where I can point it. I'm too used to rolling with it. And too overwhelmed with what Everyone Else wants of me.
I think I still want to be a proper writer, as opposed to someone who thinks best on paper/screen (what's the word for that, besides "in written form"? I'm going for something that's the opposite of "orally"-- does such a word exist?) but doesn't actually write enough. But then I think I have nothing to write. Nothing at all that needs to be said. Not really. Nothing anyone needs to hear. No real stories I'm dying to tell. Probably it's just because I can't decide what to write. But I can't justify making myself write crap when my house is a mess and my kids are alternately vegging in front of the TV, destroying the furniture, or locking themselves outside in the snow in their pajamas (yes that happened the other day). I can't write OTHER things when I've got One Book I could be working on. I can't write letters when I could be writing stories, and I can't read books when I could be writing letters, and I can't read the Internet when I could be reading books, and I can't ... I'm not even sure what I'm talking about now. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. And none of these things get done because I spend all my time worrying about the things I'm not doing. Or at least, waffling about the things I could be doing. Or at least, staring blankly into space not doing anything.
Anyway, there have been a few things on my mind this past week that I thought of writing a post about, but I didn't do that either. I've decided that I OUGHT to, next time, just to have made a decision, and be an active BLOGGER at least. I could live for blogging! Just to DO something! But...
...here I drift off, vaguely...
...because it's an appropriate way to end...
...and otherwise I wouldn't know when to stop...
...I still don't, apparently...
Now I'm dancing to Santana. I guess I'll go now.
EDIT: So, then I got all decisive and decided to wear my Ren-Fest dress to work, because dang I work in the kids' room and it's Halloween night and I'm ALLOWED, mostly because I can't think why not, and I TOTALLY FEEL BETTER ALREADY. Like, DANG, LOOK AT ME, I'M SOME KIND OF AWESOME. I think I just need to wear a Ren-Fest dress every day, so I'll be that lady buying groceries in February in a rather smelly and likely yogurt-encrusted Ren-Fest dress, and everyone will be like "So what is with that lady, anyway?" and I'll be like "I AM A SHIELDMAIDEN OF ROHAN!" and... I need a sword. You know, I've decided this is the answer. I just need to wear a costume every day. I'll alternate between Ren-Fest dress and Leia robes. Sword and blaster pistol.
Maybe I need a more practical plan.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 10:46 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 02:30 pm (UTC)From:I dated this really boring guy in college before I met Jason-- and I actually was glad Jason asked me out because I was looking for a good excuse to dump the other guy because he was so boring-- and I remember trying to get him to talk about why he'd decided to major in math, and all he could think of to say was "I don't know, because I'm pretty good at it I guess." And I thought that was the most utterly boring answer I'd ever heard for why someone had picked their future that way. And now LOOK at me! I HAVE TURNED INTO THAT BORING GUY! (Apparently, incidentally, he went on to manage a movie theater, which could be a moderately interesting job. I still don't think he was a very interesting person, though).
no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 05:05 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 05:06 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 05:07 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 05:55 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 08:31 pm (UTC)From:That doesn't help you, I know…
Let's say I'd love reading what you'd write. Whatever it would be.
Still not helping…
OK: I'd love a fantasy story with a mother as main character, one who'd pass the GeekMom Test. ^
no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 02:27 pm (UTC)From:It's funny-- since I mostly read young people's lit I mostly write stories about kids and teens, but JUST LAST NIGHT I wrote a whole LOT of a story that actually DOES have a GeekMom heroine (who is based on a friend of mine. An absurdly awesome version of her, as she would be the first to point out, but she hasn't actually seen this story yet. Yes,
no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 12:56 pm (UTC)From:I drift a lot, too. I wonder if some of it has to do with having young children? Because I used to be focused, and now I'm all "ooh, writing! no wait, blogging! no wait, reading! darn, ran out of time. must go tear children off the walls again."
no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 02:33 pm (UTC)From:Having young children definitely seems to have something to do with it!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 01:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 02:40 pm (UTC)From: