Commitment
Posted by Hiraghm 12 years, 3 months ago to The Gulch: General
This is a very big deal for me, is not easy, and has been the product of literally months of soul-searching. Pardon me for rambling: to cut to the relevant portion, scroll down and look for the --- divider.
A part of the problem I have had has been reconciling my agreements with objectivism with my Christian faith. I will never be an objectivist; I believe the philosophy relies too much on reason *at the expense* of emotion. I personally believe that reason and emotion are the yin and yang, the essential duality which must be balanced.
For the record, I will never surrender my belief that there is a God and that He loves me and wants my happiness. Without this belief, the emotional side of me cannot do what my rational side feels I now must do.
I recently took a test at Walmart for career advancement toward management. I tried balancing my own views of leadership with regards to the questions, with how I thought Walmart would want a manager to behave. The test's conclusion was that I was "non-confrontational".
I spent most of my life as #2; I'm not ashamed of it, I was very good at it. I started working for my father 3 weeks before I turned 12, in 1974. I worked holidays, summers and weekends, and when grown I worked for him full time. Of all the characters in Atlas Shrugged, I believe I most relate to Eddie Willers and Phillip Rearden. I didn't make the decisions, but I got them carried out. I used to think of myself as a leader, because, like Dagny, I would stick my neck out and commit to a decision while my fellows were still hemming and hawing and weighing blame.
When I worked as a dispatcher for a delivery service, I ran the evening shift, but always with the responsibility and authority of the office manager as an umbrella.
I've said the above because it's essential to the decision I've made, and I want to make it clear precisely how difficult this is going to be. Plus it's a way of putting it off.
I don't want to be a #2 anymore. I don't want to be a beta male. I don't want to be the "best friend" of women I admire, anymore. I don't want to be the class clown, the company joke, the court jester, anymore.
When I was in high school, I was badly bullied. I had moved to the small town my freshman year.
Death threats in my locker, my head slammed into the locker room wall for looking "wrong" at an upperclassman; when the new class rings came out, I was the prime target for "biffing"; upperclassmen would turn their ring upside down as they walked down the hall, and as they passed lowerclassmen they'd smack them in the back of the head with the ring.
All this in spite of the fact that, due to my working construction all summer, I probably could have kicked the crap out of any of them. But beta males don't do that.
Of all that, the one event that sticks in my memory is the day I had the courage to ask out a cute redhead I hadn't seen in school before. It turns out, due to the dual nature of my highschool, that she was actually well known and dating the 6'6" waterboy for the football team.
The humiliation I felt staring at his belt buckle when he confronted me in the hallway, to laugh at the idea that I would ask her out, dulled with the passage of time. But I never forgot it. I intend forgetting it now.
I had a confrontation with my boss last night. He's a good egg, and I was at fault, but the confrontation was in part due to my listening and watching Atlas Shrugged so much (in fact, I was listening to the audio book at the time), and in large part due to another of my bosses and her effect on myself and the rest of the staff.
I had been put to work stocking the pet department. Part of my dissatisfaction is that I was hired as part of the wax crew, to care for the floors, and I have spent nearly two years struggling to be able to do just that. When, just as we had finally managed to make the floors something we could be proud of (prior to my coming the wax crew was detested by the rest of the staff, and had dismal morale), they hired a contractor (some of whose crew couldn't speak English) to wax the major portion of the floors, including places we'd just gotten to gleam, I'd had enough. I went Galt-in-place. I now do the minimum necessary to keep from being fired; I no longer give them the benefit of my mind, or of my initiative.
We have one new manager who feels the need to constantly prod her underlings; we're all given the impression that she thinks us incompetent or, worse, lazy.
So when I had paused by the fish tanks to catch my breath after transferring cat food from the dog food aisle to where it belonged, and my good boss teased me about us now stocking fish at night... I lost my temper. I turned off my phone, and spent the rest of the morning thinking. My situation has become untenable. I need to either fish or cut bait.
John Galt: I live in a place we call Atlantis, and I think you'd fit in there. It's a place where heroes live; where those who *want* to be heroes live."
I want to be a hero. The hero of my own life.
And so I come to it. Commitment is scary. Apologies for the rambling procrastination.
----
I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER MAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF MINE.
----
Thank you for your indulgence.
A part of the problem I have had has been reconciling my agreements with objectivism with my Christian faith. I will never be an objectivist; I believe the philosophy relies too much on reason *at the expense* of emotion. I personally believe that reason and emotion are the yin and yang, the essential duality which must be balanced.
For the record, I will never surrender my belief that there is a God and that He loves me and wants my happiness. Without this belief, the emotional side of me cannot do what my rational side feels I now must do.
I recently took a test at Walmart for career advancement toward management. I tried balancing my own views of leadership with regards to the questions, with how I thought Walmart would want a manager to behave. The test's conclusion was that I was "non-confrontational".
I spent most of my life as #2; I'm not ashamed of it, I was very good at it. I started working for my father 3 weeks before I turned 12, in 1974. I worked holidays, summers and weekends, and when grown I worked for him full time. Of all the characters in Atlas Shrugged, I believe I most relate to Eddie Willers and Phillip Rearden. I didn't make the decisions, but I got them carried out. I used to think of myself as a leader, because, like Dagny, I would stick my neck out and commit to a decision while my fellows were still hemming and hawing and weighing blame.
When I worked as a dispatcher for a delivery service, I ran the evening shift, but always with the responsibility and authority of the office manager as an umbrella.
I've said the above because it's essential to the decision I've made, and I want to make it clear precisely how difficult this is going to be. Plus it's a way of putting it off.
I don't want to be a #2 anymore. I don't want to be a beta male. I don't want to be the "best friend" of women I admire, anymore. I don't want to be the class clown, the company joke, the court jester, anymore.
When I was in high school, I was badly bullied. I had moved to the small town my freshman year.
Death threats in my locker, my head slammed into the locker room wall for looking "wrong" at an upperclassman; when the new class rings came out, I was the prime target for "biffing"; upperclassmen would turn their ring upside down as they walked down the hall, and as they passed lowerclassmen they'd smack them in the back of the head with the ring.
All this in spite of the fact that, due to my working construction all summer, I probably could have kicked the crap out of any of them. But beta males don't do that.
Of all that, the one event that sticks in my memory is the day I had the courage to ask out a cute redhead I hadn't seen in school before. It turns out, due to the dual nature of my highschool, that she was actually well known and dating the 6'6" waterboy for the football team.
The humiliation I felt staring at his belt buckle when he confronted me in the hallway, to laugh at the idea that I would ask her out, dulled with the passage of time. But I never forgot it. I intend forgetting it now.
I had a confrontation with my boss last night. He's a good egg, and I was at fault, but the confrontation was in part due to my listening and watching Atlas Shrugged so much (in fact, I was listening to the audio book at the time), and in large part due to another of my bosses and her effect on myself and the rest of the staff.
I had been put to work stocking the pet department. Part of my dissatisfaction is that I was hired as part of the wax crew, to care for the floors, and I have spent nearly two years struggling to be able to do just that. When, just as we had finally managed to make the floors something we could be proud of (prior to my coming the wax crew was detested by the rest of the staff, and had dismal morale), they hired a contractor (some of whose crew couldn't speak English) to wax the major portion of the floors, including places we'd just gotten to gleam, I'd had enough. I went Galt-in-place. I now do the minimum necessary to keep from being fired; I no longer give them the benefit of my mind, or of my initiative.
We have one new manager who feels the need to constantly prod her underlings; we're all given the impression that she thinks us incompetent or, worse, lazy.
So when I had paused by the fish tanks to catch my breath after transferring cat food from the dog food aisle to where it belonged, and my good boss teased me about us now stocking fish at night... I lost my temper. I turned off my phone, and spent the rest of the morning thinking. My situation has become untenable. I need to either fish or cut bait.
John Galt: I live in a place we call Atlantis, and I think you'd fit in there. It's a place where heroes live; where those who *want* to be heroes live."
I want to be a hero. The hero of my own life.
And so I come to it. Commitment is scary. Apologies for the rambling procrastination.
----
I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER MAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF MINE.
----
Thank you for your indulgence.
I am on strike workwise but thats my work. It is not me.
Go for it mate.
Regarding the stuff from the past: According to "water boy", it's laughable that you should ask some girl out. No doubt that girl went through many changes that life brings and at some point wanted all kinds of different things. At some point she probably wished she were with you. Then later she realized she really wanted neither you nor water boy but an artist or something; who knows? She probably thinks elements of it were so stupid she shudders to remember. This is how I feel anyway with regard to dating in high school and college.
Regarding the job thing, Galt-in-place does not work for me! You've got to say aloud this isn't working. You've got to find a way to say calmly and positively that the same ethic that keeps you from even thinking of stealing or lying makes it impossible for your to repeat the company line on everything. It must be said with and attitude of "I want to help you be amazingly successful." If that gets you fired, that's fine. If you're a hero talking to normal people, you can't expect the normal people to understand you. Go easy on them. Your goal, IMHO, should be to find something exciting with heroes and aspiring heroes and never have to tell the normal people you work with that you can't go along with their ways.
Regarding the floor thing: You did a great job, but they didn't need it. The Ritz-Carlton or a realtor staging a house or retail space maybe do need it. The cheapest retailer in the world does not. It like offering a car detailing to someone with a 12 y/o vehicle who just was the $10 quick wash. You don't buy top-of-the-line everything, so no hard feelings that they don't.
I'm remembering ten years ago having some draft drawings on an approach I wasn't sure we'd use. Then I casually had them throw out what they had painstakingly worked on for days. Goodness I was stupid for not stopping and praising how useful their drawings would have been and how just having that option helped us win, even though their stuff would never be used directly. But they put me in that spot a few years our of engineering school, and I learned as I went. I was 27, I think. I bet the guy who changed floor wax crews is about the same age.
You go into this little world of little shits and forget that only a handful of people in the world care a whit about who stops by the flipping fish tanks. You need to find something cool and put your energies into that and let someone else worry about looking busy near the fish tanks. In five years you'll think, "But for the grace of GOD, I could have been promoted and wasted my life BEING the person asked to prod other people to look busy."
When I say "you", I mean mainly "me in various past experiences," which aren't all that many b/c I'm only 38. I actually have no idea about you or anyone else I've never met. I just know spending time around people *I* don't respect does not work for *me*.
ok- the boys in my HS did not do shit like that. what the hell? you must not have been in washington IA for HS. that said, the most vicious "gangs" I ever dealt with were in corporations.
I wasn't looking for answers, but thanks.
I just wanted witnesses. You can't make a commitment before 4 empty walls.
The commitment is to a change of life; to shuck guilt and shame, and give myself permission to live for myself. To strive to become an alpha male, no longer settle for the comfort of being a beta.