It’s ok, it’s not ideal

Thriving Together
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*just my self reflection (or thinking out loud). Thought might just put her to keep myself accountable to my own reflections hah!

I find this phrase quite comforting…We don’t live in an ideal world. Well, everybody knows that… but wouldn’t it be sooo good if we did?

Yesterday I spoke with Rick and he shared with me about concept of “he/she/they did ____, I would rather ____”. It feels great to be able to start entertaining greater imaginative situations that we believe we would. So some of the things that I wished I would rather do if I had the chance to change things, would be:

  • Being a patient and caring supervisor that lets their interns share their problems freely to me. And even if I can’t help them then and there, I want them to know that they are still heard regardless and understood of their struggles even for just a little bit. be comforted that their work is supported when they are struggling, and be pointed out of their mistakes with care, compassion and gentleness.

  • Be considerate with other people’s music journey and my own. Even if there are those that are better than me and it makes me feel inferior being around them, I would rather be able to have the space to communicate that I am where I am, and they need to understand that need of mine. So that they will not ignore my feelings of inferiority.

  • Be more understanding with people that struggles with eye contact anxiety and all the anxiety, fear and awkwardness that they experience from it. I would give them the space to not have to look at me when they’re not ready to do so. I might’ve always been hurt in the past that the eyes have always been seen like a devil’s eyes, or just attach trouble out of them. But now I’d rather treat people with the respect even if that means not looking at one’s eyes. If that’s where they are in their life, I don’t want to push them to be sociable. I might encourage them to start slow, maintain eye contact with people that feels the most comfortable to them. And slowly move towards other people…

  • focus on what matters as to what I’m learning; that is expressing myself through singing, playing guitar, and teaching it. I would rather be encouraging to myself that I am making my mark in my craft and giving myself the free space to be myself in spite of fears and worries from the world.

Then again, the truth of the matter is that, there is no ideal world… no “I would rather”, because in reality, daydreaming ideal situations may many times leave us feeling very disappointed. But then again, I think I can see where @RickThrivingNow is taking this idea. To perhaps, slowly make the real world, more ideal for ourselves… think more ideally and allowing us to create more possibilities to make situations more ideal…? And maybe eventually, we can start creating the ‘ideal’ reality…!

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It’s ok. It’s not ideal.
Of course!

Idea-l.

Can we think of anything that could not be improved, where we might collect Ideas and engineer a way to change something to make it fit that Idea-l?

It’s true that most of us benefit from being able to accept where things are NOW… and also keep the co-creative juices alive to imagine a sweeter physical and emotional world, one where there’s more eustress than distress, more co-creation than destructive competition, where we can recognize someone’s unique totem of talents and not feel “inferior” if ours is different shaped and sized.

This covers the ideal part.

The “It’s ok” comes from a situation even if hard or unpleasant is a place where we are getting needs met: need for learning, need for growth, need to make money to support ourselves right now.

I mentioned to you that I would never work in a law office. I did, though, as a consultant for word processing. By seeing the stress and insanity in the way they were doing things, I applied myself to make their life a bit easier. And while I would still never ever work in a law office (I’d gladly pick up trash for minimum wage before I worked in a law office ), when I was there as a consultant I learned so much about workplace issues, about efficiency, about the flow of documents in a law firm.

With that knowledge, I started a newsletter, The WordPerfectionist. MANY of the early articles were tuned towards people with “no time” in law offices, and my subscriber base grew to 50,000 – many of them law firms. But when I was working first in their stress pit, I did not know at all it would lead to this – only that being there was somehow adding to my professional awareness and skill.

Today I continue to build attitudes and concepts towards emotional freedom and business choices. My experience as a consultant for lawyers, accountants, and other firms while distant by decades allows me to understand the drive for freedom many employees have.

Was the time there ideal? No. Was it ok, because I was paid acceptably well and I knew I was building my totem of talent? YES!

If it had just sucked or was damaging me, I believe in finding another place to build our talents that sucks less – that actually IS okay right now.

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Thank you @RickThrivingNow. Have been pondering over your words these few days and there’s just so much wisdom and insights I’m seeing from it. Thank you for it all​:pray:t2::pray:t2::pray:t2::raised_hands:t2:

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I still have problems with this. Someone I know will not look me in the eye when she talks. Her eyes wander all over the place. I heard that when someone doesn’t look you in the eye they are hiding something. I don’t know if it is true or not but it makes me very uncomfortable. It has to be ok but it feels so strange.

I love that you want to be a patient and caring supervisor that lets interns share their problems with you. All my mature life I’ve had people come to me and just start telling me their emotional stories and I used to wonder why. As long as they aren’t dumping on me I feel honored.

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From someone who is normally someone who keeps eye contact in the culturally normal way, sure, they are likely very uncomfortable with something they are feeling or aware of.

Some people come from cultures where direct eye contact is considered a threat! Eyes averted is what is appropriate, especially with someone of higher status.

Neurodiverse beings often are told to make eye contact, and from what I hear from several people I know, once they do make eye contact, they are absolutely unable to listen to what you might be saying to them! It’s EITHER eye contact or listening.

We’re so interesting, aren’t we…

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Yes we are. I didn’t know this about eye contact and being a threat. I know that if I didn’t look at someone while they were talking I would not hear them. Maybe I’m also intuitively lip reading too because of my hearing loss. Yet if I try to lip read with no sound I can’t. Now I will see my friend who won’t look at us when she talks in a different way.

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I really appreciate the term ‘neurodiverse’…I don’t know it’s origins, you were the first person I heard use the term a while ago. It’s a really great word that just works. It’s almost like a little one word poem that explains the ‘whole thing’… that just makes me feel “Of course!! That’s it exactly!!” :slight_smile: Recognizing and honouring neurodiversity is probably one of the most fundamental and powerful things we could do for each other it seems to me. The notion of celebrating human diversity is almost meaningless if we don’t begin with recognizing neurodiversity.

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As far as I know, neurodiversity I first saw from people on the autism spectrum. Fascinatingly, the term “neurotypical” is used by them to describe those more… typical. Also Normies. Neither do anything for me.

I’m cognizant I both don’t want to co-opt a term that some people are choosing to help others understand that in their neurodiversity, we are best not to “expect” the typical.

I just actually do not have anyone (!) I know well enough and love deeply enough that I would not describe as Neurodiverse! A quandary. And also clarity that if we embrace neurodiversity, then we all get more freedom (and hopefully empathy and understanding, too).

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I worked with mentally handicapped adults for 10 years. I’m not sure what the ‘acceptable’ term is currently to describe these folks. The terminology changed every couple of years it seems and I couldn’t really detect any noticeable advantage to changing the language frankly. But, when the term ‘autism spectrum’ arrived and I had a look at it the first thing I remarked to myself was "I don’t know anyone who couldn’t be described as having a place on this spectrum…including myself." Working with that segment of the population was an amazing learning experience. Neurodiverse is what we are as far as I can tell.

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