Community Venter

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 21, 2013

It’s easy for your individual sense of right and wrong to be at odds with the customs and attitudes of your community, workplace, and/or message board chums, and you may well experience guilt when there’s a difference between the two, regardless of whether you did anything wrong. As a result, it may be hard to find your own way when you first go solo, or to re-discover your own way when pressured by an absorbing new community. In any case, ignore guilty feelings and get back to basics. Judge your actions in the light of your own experience and values and stand by them, regardless of what others think, say, and put into FAIL-related .gif form.
–Dr. Lastname

I grew up in a very Christian family where we all went to religious school and attended church several times a week, and kids weren’t allowed to date or talk to members of the opposite sex on the phone (or even consider sex before marriage). Now that I’m in my second year of college and away from home, however, I’m not sure I want to live my life this way. The school is Christian, but there are other, secular universities nearby, and I like hanging out in the college bars in town and dating. Of course, doing so makes me feel like I’m sliding into sin and would catch all kinds of criticism if my parents and home community knew what I was doing. I feel like I can’t feel like a good person in either world; I haven’t really been a bad person, but my faith in my parents’ rules has lessened. My goal is to stop swinging up and down like a yo-yo.

When you’re young, your main way of knowing whether you’re doing right or wrong is by perceiving whether others, particularly grown-ups, are angry at you; sometimes it’s through a subtle reward, and other times it’s via a very blunt spanking.

This sensation usually persists, even when you know, as an adult, that you’ve done nothing wrong or everything right. If you belong to a religious community with many conventions and rules, those feelings are also tied to doing what everyone else defines as good behavior, like going to church, praying, and not dating, all of which are tied to what they believe God wants. And God hasn’t handed out personal wrath in at least a millennium or so.

So it’s no wonder that you find yourself feeling guilty when, during your first experience as a young adult away from a fundamentalist Christian community, you start doing things that it would not approve of, but you don’t think are really wrong, and a higher power doesn’t seem to acknowledge.

My guess is that you’ve figured out that there are good and bad ways to date, given the way the hunt for sexual pleasure or power can corrupt people’s principles. You’ve also probably had to manage attractive guys on the make while keeping your own instincts in check. Not having sex may protect you from being tempted and/or used, but it’s certainly possible to stay honest and treat people decently while exploring sex and intimacy. In any case, you’re learning that, regardless of what your family and community say, you can be a good person and go dating. It’s a challenge, but if you’re level-headed, you’re not doomed, at least not to hell.

Though it won’t turn you into a bad person, dating does put you in conflict with the world you grew up in, which will probably cause a guilty, uneasy feeling for some time to come. The guilty feeling doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong, however, and it won’t last forever. You’re enrolled in an exciting college course called Wider World 101, and the tuition, like most real world tuition, is pain. If you want to take the course, do it, but don’t let the pain get you down.

You’ll do well if you follow through on your religious principles without getting demoralized by your violation of community conventions. Keep a lid on the feelings that push you towards quick intimacy, including love, lust, and liquor consumption, both for yourself and the people you choose to surround yourself with.

Simply put, don’t do unto other what you wouldn’t want done to you. Check out character through people’s actions, rather than what they say or which Bible they quote. If you feel up to the task, then you’ll do fine. Otherwise, stay away until you’re ready.

Don’t take on the world of dating, drugs and rock and roll unless you feel your principles have given you portable tools you can use in tough, tempting situations. Regardless of what happens, your community won’t be happy with you, but if you know you’re being smart and believe you’re doing right by God, than the gossip doesn’t matter.

If you can use your principles to manage the wider world, you may well wind up stronger, and happier with yourself. Ultimately, you decide your own standards for being a good person, with as much Biblical influence as you see fit, whether your community likes it or not.

STATEMENT:
“I may never be entirely accepted back home, but I know there are things to be learned in a less restricted world and, if I think I can handle the risks and community non-acceptance, that’s the kind of learning I want to do.”

I like my job but lately it’s been driving me crazy. I like my boss and the people I work with, but we’ve got two big projects rolling out at once and I just can’t keep up with all the work. I try to delegate, but I’m still working long hours, multi-tasking like crazy, and getting grumpy with my boss. If I go home at the end of the day without kicking ass on these projects, I get so stressed out and disappointed with myself I can’t sleep. My goal is to keep my cool while I get the work done.

Whenever your goal involves one single thing that you’re most focused on, be careful that you haven’t forgotten other goals that are equally or more important. After all, that’s the main reason that all big problems are usually unsolvable; if you get everything you want in one area of your life, it usually compromises some other area of your life, so real goals almost always require compromise and trade-offs. Just look at the Middle East.

In this case, your goal is to get all your work done, but you’ve left out the fact that you have other needs, work is only work, and your burnout can’t be having a good effect on your home life. There’s a danger here that you’re burning yourself out by forgetting that fact, and where your own (secular, see above) principles lie.

So what you’ve probably left out of your goal is the important concept—quitting time. What you should be asking yourself is how to define your job description so that, regardless of the pressure to work 24 hours/day, you know how many hours you’re paid for and how you prioritize work within those hours. The one thing your job description should never, ever include is “getting all my work done” with no regard to hours or limits.

In defining your job description, you may take into account your understanding when hired; there’s nothing wrong with working harder for a short period of time in response to special circumstances, but you must ask yourself how long those circumstances are likely to last and how well you will be compensated for extra work. What you need to ignore is your competitive urge to be as dedicated and elite in your performance as the other guy and your fear of not looking as good as others or having a horrible feeling in your stomach if you don’t get everything done.

If, as is likely after you’ve prioritized your work and defined your quitting time, there are projects you can’t expect to complete, don’t think of yourself as saying “no” to a work assignment. Instead, say “yes” to working hard on important priorities while regretfully reporting on a list of tasks that can’t be done without additional resources.

Tell your boss that, because you know you’ve got an enormous high priority workload at the moment, you’ve given careful thought to prioritizing and delegating tasks and clearing your desk of everything that’s not critical. Then present him or her with a list of the tasks that will need to be delayed, as well as those that will receive top priority, and ask for his or her feedback. Make it clear that you can’t do everything, but are doing your best to do the most important things, and do them well.

It’s easy to lose yourself in a job, but if you’re not running your own business, then mind your own business and take care of your personal life.

STATEMENT:
“I hate the feeling of not getting word done, especially when others are knocking themselves out without regard to how many hours they spend on the job, but I’m determined to have a life and learn the art of prioritizing and being proud of the work I do within the limits of a job description. I will put a limit on my work time and present the tasks for which I can take responsibility in a positive and firm manner.”