so, today's post.  it's a reply to davey wavey.  who's that?  well, he's this super adorable and very positive guy i came across randomly on the internet, and after reading one of his posts, i started typing a response in the comments section.  however, upon completing my thoughts, i realized that it was way too long for the comments section, and that it would be against my better judgment (and basic internet etiquette) to post it there.  instead, i'll put my response here.  maybe he'll read it, or maybe not.  this comment would experience the same fate if it went into his comments section, because he has a very large following and probably can't possibly read all the comments.  anyway, that's what i have a blog for!

so here's his post.  i'll also include some of the text of his post below:

I suppose it might be possible to “have” what could be considered a bad day. But I think that this statement is incomplete and misleading.

For example: Tonight, I had a bad dinner. I heated up some taco meat from the distant past, and added some dried up cheese to an even drier tortilla. I’m trying to clear my cupboards, so I accompanied my dinner with a few less-than-satisfying baked potato chips leftover from the month prior. Indeed, I “had” a bad dinner.

But moreover, I “created” a bad dinner. Saying that I had a bad dinner leaves out a crucial detail: I am the one responsible for said undesirable culinary creation. And that crucial detail makes all the difference!

he goes on to make the analogy to when we feel we've had a bad day.  we can look at it as having "had" a bad day, or as having it because we created it.  so, this is my response:

hi davey.  first visit to your site.  you're adorbs!  i wish you lived in my neighborhood and could cheer me up every day.  are you really that upbeat and chipper?  awesome!

not to be a dissenter, but i want to pose a question, or thought experiment, or whatever you want to call it.

you know how those buddhist monks who've been practicing meditation their whole lives have proven with EEGs and such that they know how to use their minds, and meditation, to consciously affect body states, such as heart rate, the relaxation state of brain waves (from alpha to delta), blood pressure, release of stress hormones, and many other important bodily functions?  well, i think that certainly proves that the human mind has an incredible capacity to control what are normally thought of as automatic or reflex bodily functions.  and i love that that's possible.

however, these guys are trained, practiced.  kind of like your very fit body, you've worked toward that body, and now can do things that a chubby body like mine isn't (yet anyway) able to do -- like push-ups.  can't do those.  i wonder if it's fair to say that we can create a better day for ourselves as if it's an across-the-board ability for people.  maybe that's something you have to learn, work toward.  maybe it's something that some people, because of their upbringing or mental health predisposition, are farther from being able to control than very healthy individuals.

for instance, sometimes people have an adrenaline system that's haywire.  i'm one of those individuals.  because the glands in my body which release adrenaline aren't something i have learned to control, and i don't even know where to learn how to control it, how can i create a different situation for myself in a single day?  i'm not sure it's possible.  just like i'd have to train (and in the right way) in order to be able to do a push-up, it would take some time for me to acquire the ability to control my adrenaline in everyday situations.

in case you don't know, when your adrenaline system kicks itself into high gear due to some minor trigger, it's not only unpleasant (sweating, increased heart rate, shaky hands, etc.), but my ability to use my brain in the normal, logical way is diminished.  i know that there's nothing to be panicked about, yet i feel panicked.  and it snowballs.  sometimes it gets to the point where i'm completely convinced that there are all these things wrong, and i'll even end up in a fit of tears.  not always even sure why, other than my body's fight-or-flight response being falsely triggered.

so sometimes, having a bad day is, in my opinion, a state of health you're experiencing.  there's a pretty thin line between physical and mental health, since neurotransmitters are so involved in things like reaction time, pain sensitivity, sleepiness, etc., so i'm coming at this from the perspective that i have an ailment.  and it's a totally natural process for living things to die and disintegrate, sometimes before reaching maturity.  so i also don't think it's a fair posture to say that if someone is ill, they're not being what they should be.  some people just get sick and suffer, and some just get sick and die, and some suffer and then die.  what if it's just my natural state to be someone with this mental illness, who will suffer pain for much of my life before i ultimately expire?

maybe it's just my lot, and bad day after bad day is something i have to either accept or work *really* hard to overcome.  and to me, that makes it different from someone who doesn't have this condition, and doesn't have to work so hard to think themselves into a better mindset.  so the supposition that a person can simply sit down, take a deep breath, put things in perspective, remind themselves of the good in their lives, and turn those brain chemicals right around just seems too strong an assumption.

some things we don't simply don't create, or don't know how to create.  i love the positive message you're trying to spread, and i myself also try to think this way.  but i just wanted to point out that it can sometimes feel insulting to folks with mental illness or imbalances to hear that they can *think* themselves into a better state.  while that might be true, the psychiatric community is still not sure how it works.  there are even people who believe you can imagine yourself healed, and heal something like cancer.  this may also be true!  i don't know.  but if i told someone with cancer that they can create a healthier body for themselves, i think they'd be offended.  i'm not offended, but i felt like i should bring this up.  i do believe it's possible for me to control my panic attacks, and will be trying out neuro/biofeedback as soon as i can afford it, as a method of training myself how.  but right now i lack not only the skillset, but the instruction manual.  and i think this is the case for a lot of people.  and for this set of people, they're not creating their own bad days, at least not the way they see it.

why i feel that venturing into the world to find myself a career is going to be very difficult and why i am so discouraged, in 500 words or less (yeah right):

(1) i'm a space cadet, like some sort of eternal stoner, with selective and unpredictable short-term memory, which people don't (and won't) believe about me due to the fact that i have an uncanny memory for myriad details from information (visual and otherwise) which i've absorbed long ago. 

(2) partially due to #1, and partially due to other factors, i'm not good at being on time, and i personally think it's bullshit to have to leave 2 hrs early to get somewhere that usually takes 35 minutes to get to just because of the occasional traffic situation (or weather, or forgetting you were out of gas) that means that occasionally you'll be insanely late if you give yourself just 5-10 minutes of buffer. you're not getting paid for that time, and it's bullshit. i cannot be happy in a situation where i have to prepare like this.  if my job is 35 minutes away, i think i should be able to leave 45 minutes before i have to be there, and on the occasions that i'm late, well, that's just the unpredictability of this world.  but my mail better arrive quickly, dammit!!!

(3) i grow quickly bored working on the same thing over and over and over again, unless it's something like sweeping the floor, which i find somewhat relaxing and soothing. but i don't want a repetitive job in the long run, obviously, so i certainly don't want to look at any janitorial positions at the moment.  once i'm getting a paycheck, i'm hesitant to disturb my life's balance, and don't like spending my limited spare time searching for yet another job.  so why waste time at a menial job now?  and why get excited about a high-profile job that amounts to little more?

(4) i have trouble waking up in the morning, and i sleep horribly almost every night. so even if i do get up before my morning NPR news alarm stops going, i am likely to be extremely tired and unproductive on random days.  it's not predictable.  some days i wake up feeling fine.  some days i feel tired and just fantasize all day about napping on a giant pillow in a warm patch of sun with a slight breeze to keep me from overheating.  ::sigh::  and sometimes, even when i do feel plenty rested, by the time my night of sleep is over, i've incurred all variety of muscle injuries.  usually my neck or shoulders.  occasionally a limb.  and no, i'm not old enough for this to be normal.  i'm still a few years from 30.  sheesh.

(5) i hate getting onto/into my bike/car and leaving the house. i hate leaving. i hate moving. i hate relocating. even at the end of a long work day, i find it hard to leave, just because of this weird aversion to moving. especially if i have to move from something sorta still and ordinary into something infuriating like traffic.  in fact, if i'm sitting at my desk, i will avoid getting up to pee just because i don't want to move.  i think it's some sort of psychological ailment that hasn't been named yet.  but whatever it is, i've got it.

(6) even though there are plenty of redeeming factors about me, i don't know how to conjure them up well enough to feel confident putting together a resume, cover letter, website, portfolio. so far, all my attempts fall through the cracks and ultimately fail. so even though i know that if people really knew my breadth of knowledge and my passion and interest in learning new things and my amazing ability to retain tons of trivia and relevant facts to processes and materials, they'd want to hire me, i know that in a lot of cases, they're going to hire someone i could run circles around, just because they presented themselves in a certain way that i didn't do when i tried to market myself.  yes, i have a healthy ego.  but i hate trying to sell myself.  i want someone to just snatch me up and say, "hey, you, get over here.  you're perfect for this job!"

(7) i can't work at any job where i have to have all my clothes pressed each day for work. or wear white that has to always be clean (like fine dining) because i've tried it, and it's always been a miserable failure. no matter how slick of attire i'm in, i dirty it, i wrinkle it, i stain it, i stretch it, i lose buttons, i look unkempt very shortly.  and i sweat like a damn pig.  i use the strongest antiperspirant, and it still doesn't help.  in fact, did you know that the aluminum compounds in the antiperspirant (plus the heat in your armpits) helps set stains into your clothing?  so if your sweat is a slightly yellowish brownish color (and it is; everyone's is), then eventually, your sweat will be just as set into the armpits of your shirts as the fabric dye the manufacturer used. so i really have to work at a job which allows casual attire, unless i can afford to buy a whole new wardrobe, and then to replace any items i soil. and with my fluctuating weight, that seems a bad idea anyhow. i should feel certain i'm stabilized on my weight before i make any serious clothing purchases.  but getting up to exercise in the morning is so hard (see #4).  but it's the only time of day when exercising is a good idea for me, because it's nice and cool and i hate sweating profusely and feeling overheated, so morning is ideal.  evenings aren't because then i'm wired before bed.  bad idea, again, because [see #4].

(8) i'm exceptionally sensitive. i'm easily hurt by negative comments or just outright rude people. after working at any job that involves dealing with a hoity-toity (sp? anyone?) customer base day in and day out, the entitled sort, it drains my spirit. just their attitudes make me feel like the life's been sucked out of me. in the sort of cut-throat environment where people are competing instead of collaborating, i can easily be pushed to become competitive, but when i don't succeed, i am devastated, and when i do, i still get these icky feelings inside, because it's so much more fulfilling to be in a collaborative & encouraging environment. like being in an art class. everyone is so encouraging and interested in each other's work, and fascinated by the many different ways that individuals choose to interpret an assignment, or sketch a pose. that's enriching. some workplaces just don't have that enriching quality, and why bother making art for a living if it's going to be a drag?  might as well drag a broom across the floor.  at least that's relaxing, and i can wear headphones and listen to NPR all day.

(9) everyone always says you need to know exactly what you want to do, otherwise how can you seek it out? this is valid only to a point, so it's a flawed assumption. first of all, if you have one goal, and you don't succeed, well, you're going to be really upset. if you're flexible enough that you know you could be happy and successful in a number of different jobs, why not keep your options open? anyway, i'm constantly hearing about people who entered into some strange job you've never heard of that is really cool only by chance, and they're super happy about the random route they took to get there. i just want to sort of look around and find stuff that matches my skillset and interests and then make sure i'm working with people that i like, and that i think the line of work and the company is ethical (not violating human rights, and working toward sustainability and local sourcing of materials whenever possible). there aren't job search engines which really take these factors into account. it's all so specialized and specific, and i'm a generalist. and a damn good one, if i do say so myself. and being specialized in one thing forever would be so boring. bleh.