Control
Wave 533
Thursday
The 18th of November, 2004 at 07:56 PM
Control. What do you feel like you are in control of? What don't you feel in control of?
I'm beginning to ask myself this. I guess it's one of those topics of debate, like fate or free will. I feel that I am control of some things in my life, while others I don't feel so in control of.
Lets start with school. God gave me a knack to study/learn. I don't know how I do it, but I can absorb a crazy amount of information in a short amount of time. That is why I say I have a pseudo-photographic memory at times. It's like this, I have biochemistry this semester. I haven't paid attention since the last exam, like at all. I sleep alot, day dream, worry, etc. Anything but biochemistry. I start hearing people are studying 2 weeks early for the test, and yet I haven't even started. I wanted to start but I got sick with the stomach flu. Well, I picked up the notes for basically the first time last night, 60 solid pages of notes. I counted them four or five times, trust me. In about 3 hours I made my way through half of them. I've talked to people in class, it takes them a week to get that far. I don't know what it is, but I have a gift, and I am so going to be thankful for it. So I feel in control. When test time comes (monday) I will be ready, I won't be sweatin' a storm, and I won't be shaking.
Then there is work. For the most part I feel like I'm in control here. I manage my people effectively and my managerial presence is acknowledged. At times I don't feel in control. Certain people continually disobey the rules, even after repeated confrontations with them. You would think you would be able to change people, but some people never change. So this is a yes or no.
I would like to think I'm in control of my personal life, but I know that would be lying. Every time I think I'm headed down a road for something great, I find that I'm on some abandoned road no one has even seen before. Not that this is a bad thing, because you can learn about places you've never been before, but it isn't necessarily the most uplifting road to travel all the time.
My brain. I let my brain make me do stupid things like get sick or think too optimistically at times. I guess the very fact that I don't feel in control here is because I never have been. Remember the little survey about bad habits, well let's talk about OCD. It's story time folks.
So does anyone know what it stands for? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Once you get it, it really never goes away. Strongest during adolescence. Can be very minor to very stressful and life altering. That's the Skinny from John. You are wondering now? "How bad did he have it....?" Let's start with a typical night before I went to bed, this was when it was at its prime, its worst. I would spend about an hour or two preparing myself, the house, my room before being self-assured it was ok to sleep. It's not like I wanted to do this, but my brain told me I had to. It was terrible. I would go to every door in the house and make sure they were locked. Unlocking them, re-locking them. As I would walk across any carpet I would make sure to brush them with my hands to make sure there were no footprints behind me. Sometimes when I finally made it back to my room I would forget whether or not I checked a door. And I knew I did, but my brain wanted proof. So I had to start over. Finally when I got to my room it was time to prep it. I would go around the whole room and make sure everything was three inches away from the edge of whatever it was sitting on. That way over night it wouldn't fall off. I then would proceed to push my closet doors open over and over until my mind was happy with how open they really were. I then would shut my blinds (not up, but down), and click them three times. The third time I would slowly turn the wand till it was just about to click. But if it clicked I had to start over. I then brushed all my footprints on the carpet by my bed after I got in. I would say my prayers with appropriate speech inflections otherwise I would have to start over. All the while my mind would be racing about the doors downstairs, missed spots on the carpet, something not three inches from the edge. One particular night I spent an hour pushing my closets doors open. After I was all done with everything my mind told me they closed just a tiny bit after I had pushed them open earlier. So I took a leap over the brushed carpet I had done early and took as little steps as possible to the closet. I carefully pushed the doors as far as they would go and let them come back. Jumped back as little as possible back to bed. I got there and they looked like they moved again, so I repeated. I did that for an hour.... an hour. After that hour my stomach was throbing from jumping back and forth and I started to cry. I cried so hard and started screaming at myself. I cried myself to sleep.
That was the turning point. It was then I decided that I couldn't live my life like that. Every week I started forgetting parts of what had been dubbed by my close family as "my routine." Pretty soon there was barely anything left except a few minor things that could be neglected. I will admit I have things here and there I still do, but you never really get rid of something like that. It's like your first love, you never forget it. Bad analogy but it's true.
A lot of us have come a long way from our past, but it is something we never forget or should be ashamed of. Too often we think it is time to move on and forget, start a new life, get reborn. But everything that has happend to us... shapes us into who we are. God gave us these things to make us special. He gave us our past, and he will give us our future. Don't ever regret your blessings, no matter how terrible they may have been. They were given to you with love, to show you something, teach you something, and make you a better person in the end. Cherish every moment you live... and every moment you've had.
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