{"id":1439,"date":"2012-06-26T14:22:53","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T21:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2012-09-05T19:29:26","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T02:29:26","slug":"speaking-of-eeyore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/26\/speaking-of-eeyore\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of Eeyore"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eeyore. Smiling. Awesome.<\/p><\/div>\n

The other day a friend of mine said he worried that my Sacred Animal Totem was Eeyore. I chuckled because I knew what he meant but also because that assessment is wrong and I\u2019m happy to point that out, not because it means he is wrong but because that\u2019s really not who I am.<\/p>\n

For those who may not know who Eeyore is, he\u2019s the perpetually dour character from the Winnie the Pooh series of children\u2019s stories who can never see good in anything. His friends do all kinds of things to help him, but it always falls apart. He\u2019s given up hope because he believes there\u2019s no point in believing otherwise. In that world there really is a cloud of caca around poor Eeyore. He has the worst luck.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Winnie the Pooh isn\u2019t real life. While I believe luck does play a part in our lives, it\u2019s not really a thing that some people have and some don\u2019t. In other words, two otherwise identical people aren\u2019t different by luck. Instead, the luck is due to them already being different. Some say that everyone can be equally lucky if they simply choose to be. Bullshit. That\u2019s like saying that everyone can be an Olympic sprinter if they try hard enough. There are differences in people that cause some to think one way or another, to make choices one way or another, and how they react to the results even is hard-wired to a point. Is that an excuse to say, \u201cfuck it\u201d and give up? Of course not.<\/p>\n

Some people seem to live charmed lives blessed in nearly everything they do, but as was posted the other day, we\u2019re comparing our behind-the-scenes with their \u201chighlight reel\u201d. Unfortunately, some don\u2019t understand that and point to the apparent inequities as proof of how they\u2019ve been screwed in life.<\/p>\n

In truth almost all that \u201cgood fortune\u201d is due to the ability to make good choices.\u00a0For some that ability comes naturally. For us mere mortals, though, the ability is learned through mistakes and the desire not to repeat them. Touch the hot stove and we get burned. That\u2019s a lesson we should only need to learn once, if at all. If you started early then you have a lot of experience and make deciding on good choices look easy. If, like me, you started late then you have a lot of catching up to do.<\/p>\n

Incredibly some people never wise up. They make the same dumb-ass choices over and over without learning from their mistakes or anyone else\u2019s and then cry out how much their lives suck. And they resent anyone who is not suffering as they are even going so far as to look down upon anyone apparently doing better than them with jealous envy, consumed with an insatiable need to tear them down to their level. That\u2019s bullshit, too, of the most pathetic kind because even if you \u201cwin\u201d you lose. In fact, everyone loses, and if you\u2019re in a dark and desperate place, it may be game over – know what I mean?<\/p>\n

A better idea is to try to pick up on what the perceived \u201clucky ones\u201d are doing right and apply it to you. It may not be a physical thing but an idea, and you may have to tweak it to make it work. For example, the think happy, be happy mantra. Where I\u2019m at right now this just isn\u2019t possible. However, tweaking it with a dollop of stop, drop, and roll converts it to something I can do. I might read something that makes me angry enough to want to respond, but before I do I stop and think about whether there\u2019s anything to be gained, and since there\u2019s almost always not, I drop the thought and roll on. At least I try. Other times it\u2019s quicker and easier to post a raw, zero-thought rant, like digging out a thorn you can\u2019t ignore. It may be more painful in the short term, but getting the damned thing out is sometimes a triumph enough to warrant parading it around for all to see. Best of all, the irritation goes away almost instantly.<\/p>\n

My friend who made the Eeyore comment wrote that he sometimes creates eleven drafts of rants about the things that irritate, annoy, worry, and trouble him. He tosses that and then posts something positive. I chuckled at that because I used to write and rewrite drafts and responses, too. Eventually, though, I found that after enough revisions the reason for composing the piece faded away. About the same time I discovered that posting a raw rant accomplished the same thing as all those revisions but in much less time and without all the fuss.<\/p>\n

My memoir is crawling along at a snail\u2019s pace and that bothers me greatly. I\u2019ve been working on it for nearly twenty years now – a very long time, and I\u2019ve little to show for my effort, and that bothers me greatly. I think about how long it\u2019s taken me to get this far, and I map out how far I still have to go, and that bothers me greatly, too, and I\u2019m concerned that when I finally make it to where I\u2019m wanting to go, getting there will no longer matter.<\/p>\n

I could declare the memoir done and put it out there, and then pump out some sci-fi books, but I\u2019d know the memoir wasn\u2019t what I wanted it to be.\u00a0You know what though? Instead of dwelling on all that concern, I do the best I can to emulate my friend and think about what could I possibly do to change the map? He asked me once what it is that I wanted most, and I answered, \u201cTo unleash my awesomeness.\u201d He may have misunderstood my comment, but that was the truth without sarcasm, cynicism, or any hint of Eeyoreism. That is how I\u2019m going to change my map. That is what I need<\/em> most.<\/p>\n

And for the record my memoir is going to be kick-ass awesome. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day a friend of mine said he worried that my Sacred Animal Totem was Eeyore. I chuckled because I knew what he meant but also because that assessment is wrong and I\u2019m happy to point that out, not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,11],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-troubles","tag-memoir-2","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1638,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}