Archive for September, 2009

Can AVOIDANCE sometimes be a mistake, even when… factually…every attempt has ended in disaster?

Yes.  Now, I’m not talking about the street tacos in Mexico City or risking your life and endangering the lives of others by continuing to take shots at sliding all-lovely off the ski lift chair… those activities we can do without rather easily.  (See previous post on dangers of tacos and chair lifts.)

But… what about when we are telling ourselves we CANNOT ever succeed at an activity and, though we’ve had many painful failures… we’d really like the rewards of that activity? And, when we calm the heck down…the truth is…other people have done it,so it’s possible.  Again, I’m voting against taking another shot at that ski lift chair death trap.  I know other people hop off the lift bench looking like the coolest people alive… and I even accept that, theoretically, given a long life and all winters devoted to the ski lift chair, I, too, could be successful.

To accomplish even complex tasks, all that usually stands between us and success is a little bit of information and the capacity to manage our anxiety through the “I don’t know how to do this” freakout. Now, I’m not suggesting you attempt to fly the plane on your next trip….you COULD…the only thing holding you back is a lack of information….a lack of a really big chunk of information.

But, to return to a task closer to home that has blackened my days, met with unrelenting failure, and yet…I’d really like to be successful.  Oh, yeah.  I’m talking about my pathetic efforts at website building. I really want to build a website.  I’m not done yet.

First, a simpler example of someone coming to the conclusion that a task is impossible due to lack of simple information.

One summer day when my parents were out of the country, they called back from a remote phone in the Alps asking to have certain information located in a file cabinet inside their house faxed to a cruise line address. Usually, this task would be mine.  However, on this fine summer day…defined in Texas as over a hundred degrees and real sweaty…I was unavailable.  Thus, my special person was up to fulfill the request.  Knowing I’d let myself into their house many times, he first spent twenty minutes going through extra keys.  He picked out a dozen possibles from the pounds of keys in the miscellaneous drawer… and headed for the country.

He spent his first thirty minutes and first bucket of perspiration trying each key in the front door lock without success.  Testing for a possible unlocked window led under walls of English ivy growing in layers since the 1950s.  Now he couldn’t breathe and suspected the allergy attack later on would set a new coughing record. He visited the surrounding six houses hoping a neighbor had a key, only to learn that the lady across the street and the couple on one side of the house were still holding grudges regarding certain high school yard decorating mistakes I hadn’t shared with him. Exhausted and out of ideas, he gave up.  He can’t get in.  He’d call a locksmith if his presence in the family photos taken on the lawn… he’d bring along in the morning would be enough proof to that he had the right to enter the house.

When I strolled in later that night, a day earlier than expected, my special person related his afternoon of woe ending with, “I’m glad you’re here since you know where there’s a key that works.”

“Oh, no…” I say.  “I don’t have a key or know where one is.  I just take a screwdriver and ooch back the little dealie, and wha-la, I’m in.”

Today someone gave me the web address of a do-it-yourself website maker “that anyone can do”….and for once…I couldn’t prove them wrong.

What activities have you given up… when all you needed was the right information? And the capacity to manage anxietythrough the learning curve?