One of the most difficult things for me to do, that I’ve started to be better at, is moderating my effort.
I have two basic modes of operation.
Total and complete avoidance.
Or obsessive over doing, over trying, one hundred and ten percent max effort.
Both of these methods are an unwillingness to accept, or even look at, reality.
It is a bad cycle to get into. Avoiding and then overcompensating for the avoiding. Then avoiding to recover from the over compensating.
I’ve done that with money, relationships, work, my health.
The relationship ones are the most deceptive and damaging.
But in my experience the most dangerous thing about operating this way is not actually the avoiding part. It’s the effort part.
I’ve noticed that effort does fuck with my brain more than anything else. The more effort I put into something, the more I expect to get out of it.
And I’ve learned the hard way that effort doesn’t actually count for much at all.
For example when I was addicted to cigarettes, not smoking when I wanted to smoke was a lot of effort for me.
Addicts have a very low threshold when it comes to effort. Little accomplishments require a lot of their effort.
I had a friendship for a long time where I expended so much energy trying not to fight with her.
So much effort went into that.
But part of that is because my threshold was very low on certain things.
My temper for example, I had to expend a lot of effort to control it.
That’s a whole enormous topic in and of itself.
But for this post the issue is still that I had to spend the effort. And the effort I expended made me feel more entitled to receiving the things I wanted for putting in all that effort.
This is going to be a two parter because I am out of time.
Saturdays are hard.
Jess lanai 