The Day I Stopped Fighting Myself

RJ-001

I did not learn to love every part of myself.

Let’s clear that up immediately.

There are parts of me I would still like to speak with management about.

I overthink.

I get excited and create fourteen new ideas before finishing the first three.

I can turn one small decision into a committee meeting.

I have opinions about things that probably do not require opinions.

I can be stubborn past the point of usefulness.

Sometimes I know I’m doing something the hard way while actively continuing to do it the hard way.

So no.

This is not the story where I gazed into a mirror, burst into tears, and finally adored every inch of my complicated little soul.

Absolutely not.

This is the story about the day I got tired of being at war with her.

Me.

There is a difference.

For most of my life, I treated self-improvement like a demolition project.

Find the problem.

Remove the problem.

Be less emotional.

Less intense.

Less complicated.

Less likely to care too much.

Less likely to want too much.

More disciplined.

More polished.

More normal.

Normal was always very important, despite the fact that I could never find anybody willing to define it.

I kept believing there was some finished version of me I could eventually produce if I worked hard enough.

She would be calm.

Efficient.

Unbothered.

Probably beige.

She would not spend two hours naming something that technically did not exist yet.

She would not get obsessed with an idea at 10:47 at night.

She would not buy leopard print and call it neutral.

She would certainly not build a whole western universe around hot pink, philosophy, strange drinks, cowgirl grit, and a small dog with law enforcement authority.

She sounded exhausting.

And boring.

Still, I chased her.

Not because I hated myself.

That’s too simple.

I thought improvement meant correction.

Anything difficult about me needed fixing.

Anything inconvenient needed taming.

Anything that didn’t make immediate sense needed explanation.

So I lived in a constant state of internal performance review.

Needs improvement.

Too emotional.

Too ambitious.

Too scattered.

Too loud here.

Too quiet there.

Should have known better.

Should be further along.

Could have handled that better.

Why are you like this?

That last question really gets around.

Why are you like this?

As though I had been assembled incorrectly at the factory.

Eventually, I got tired of conducting investigations.

Not because I solved myself.

Because the investigation was eating the evidence.

I was spending so much energy evaluating myself that I had very little left for actually living.

Every instinct needed review.

Every desire needed justification.

Every mistake became a character assessment.

Every awkward moment went before the grand jury.

And if somebody else didn’t understand me?

Excellent.

New material for the prosecution.

It was ridiculous.

Also miserable.

The turning point was not dramatic.

Most useful things in my life seem to lack proper production value.

There was no music.

No western sky.

No Pink Smoke.

I was simply sitting with some version of myself I had once again decided needed improvement when this thought arrived:

What if I quit making everything mean something about me?

Not every mistake means I’m incapable.

Not every bad mood means I’m difficult.

Not every abandoned idea means I’m undisciplined.

Not every disagreement means I’m wrong.

Not every change of mind requires a personality autopsy.

Sometimes I am just a person having a Tuesday.

That realization was almost offensively ordinary.

I loved it.

I had made myself into a philosophy problem when sometimes I just needed lunch.

That changed more than I expected.

I started separating behavior from identity.

This thing didn’t work.

Fine.

That does not mean I don’t work.

I handled that badly.

Okay.

That does not mean I am bad.

I changed my mind.

Good information.

I got overwhelmed.

Probably should sleep.

I wanted something ridiculous.

Let’s hear the ridiculous thing out.

This is far less dramatic than self-love.

It is also much more useful.

The war started losing funding.

I stopped trying to defeat every trait I had.

Some needed boundaries.

Some needed better habits.

Some needed an apology.

Some needed absolutely nothing.

That last category was new.

I had spent years fixing things that were not broken.

My enthusiasm, for example.

I used to think I should contain it.

Now I mostly try not to start six businesses before breakfast.

That feels like a reasonable compromise.

My tendency to imagine things bigger than they are?

Useful.

It built Wild Jai.

It also means I occasionally need Cash to remind me that one idea does not require an immediate twelve-volume operating manual.

Again, compromise.

My sensitivity?

Pain in the ass sometimes.

Also part of why I notice what I notice.

Why I write the way I write.

Why a place can get under my skin.

Why a sentence matters.

Why something beautiful can ruin my whole afternoon in the best possible way.

I don’t need to destroy a trait because it occasionally inconveniences me.

I need to learn how to live with it intelligently.

That became the new question.

Not:

How do I get rid of this?

But:

What does this need from me?

That question is quieter.

It also produces better answers.

Some parts of me need structure.

Some need rest.

Some need less access to the internet after 9 p.m.

Some need room.

Some need to be challenged.

Some need to stop pretending they’re helping.

And some need to be left the hell alone.

There is enormous peace in finally knowing the difference.

Not peace in the candle-and-soft-music sense.

More like the peace that comes when two neighboring countries agree to stop firing artillery over the fence.

We are still suspicious of each other.

There are border disputes.

Paperwork remains.

But nobody is bombing the kitchen.

Progress.

Wild Jai benefited from the ceasefire immediately.

Once I stopped spending all that energy trying to correct myself, I had energy to make things.

Write.

Learn.

Build.

Name.

Test.

Fail.

Laugh.

Change the menu again.

Make something terrible and decide whether it deserves another attempt.

Make something good and resist the urge to immediately complicate it.

Sometimes.

The important part wasn’t that I became confident.

I didn’t.

Confidence comes and goes like weather.

What changed was that I stopped requiring confidence before participation.

I could be unsure and still work.

Embarrassed and still try.

Annoyed with myself and still continue.

That last one is particularly important.

I think we underestimate how much of adulthood is continuing while mildly irritated with yourself.

Nobody puts that on a mug.

They should.

The old fight still starts sometimes.

I catch myself reopening cases we already closed.

You should be better at this.

You should have figured this out.

Why are you still doing that?

Then I have to decide whether there is useful information inside the criticism.

Sometimes there is.

Annoying.

Sometimes there isn’t.

Also useful.

Either way, I don’t automatically turn the whole courthouse back on.

That’s the difference now.

I can correct myself without condemning myself.

I can grow without treating the current version like an embarrassment.

I can admit I screwed something up without rewriting my entire character.

I can dislike a trait and still understand what it contributes.

I can change because something isn’t working, not because I believe I am fundamentally defective.

That is what stopped the fight.

Not unconditional love.

Not perfect acceptance.

Not enlightenment.

Proportion.

I finally learned to stop giving every flaw a military budget.

Some things are serious.

Handle them.

Some things need work.

Work on them.

Some things are quirks.

Live with them.

Some things are somebody else’s preference wearing an official-looking badge.

Ignore those.

And some things are simply me.

Still here.

Still complicated.

Still occasionally unreasonable.

Still capable of turning a simple idea into an entire universe before lunch.

I don’t fight that woman much anymore.

Mostly, I give her a notebook.

It keeps her occupied.