Pick yourself up! You can do it, why don't you try harder? You have so much potential, why don't you live up to it? Be more responsible. Why can't you remember to take care of a few simple things? Who tells me what needs to be done in a day? Nobody, I just do what needs to be done and so should you!
After a while these endless speeches sound the same: Wah wah wah loser, wah wah wah, lazy, wah wah wah bum, wah wah wah you're not trying hard enough wah wah wah, why don't you listen when I'm talking to you, wah wah wah, Don't you understand what's at stake here?
YES!
Don't you think I would if I could? Do you honestly think I like living this way? How could you even insinuate that it's just my attitude that I just need to get over my problems and get on with living? If I could, don't you think I would have done that by now? Thanks for the vote of confidence: nobody gives a shit about my problems; they just want me to produce. Well I give a shit about my problems and I want to produce. I just can't seem to sort the endless thoughts in my head long enough to be productive. Nobody cares or wants to understand what its like to go through your life in a whirlwind of fury and frenzy. Nobody cares that I have millions of thoughts a day that I can't begin to understand. Everyone has great advice that worked for them, so it ought to work for me too. If I read this book or attend this seminar, go to this shrink, take these pills, try this method of organizing, do this do that, I'll be as good as new and everyone will smile. I'm hurting myself and I am hurting others because I can't seem to get it right. I've been this way all my life and yet everyone is still expecting the "miracle" light bulb to just "go off" at any minute. I'll just "flip that switch" and all of the sudden I'll be competent, happy, well adjusted, and have a positive attitude. Let me make that change right now…nothing is happening…hmmm, maybe I didn't flick the right switch…damn thing didn't come with a manual or diagram. Seems like the whole thing is shorted out, wonder why? While we're at it, let's get all the people with cancer to flip the switch and be cured, and we'll get everyone with heart disease, missing limbs, diabetes, leprosy, AIDS, you name it, we'll all just get together and pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and be cured. If only it were that simple.
What I have is invisible to the naked eye. If I had some sort of disibility that was obvious, then my life would be a little easier, at least people would understand why I struggle the way I do. What most people see is true: a reasonably intelligent person with talent and skill who just can't seem to keep it together for long. I wish I had the "answer," because I'd share it with everyone else who had this problem, but I don't know it. What I do know is I am terribly angry with a lot of people for trying to force me to be something I am not. Maybe I am the cause of all or most of my problems. Maybe I am better off if I go somewhere by myself and leave the uncaring world behind. If the world doesn't care about me, why should I give a shit about it? I have been accused of being lazy, slovenly, unmotivated, self-centered, cruel, angry, depressed, frustrated, hard to understand, and who knows what else. Maybe there is a reason I am all these things. Maybe I wasn't meant to go along with the crowds. Maybe I was meant to "…March to the beat of a different drummer," to borrow from Henry David Thoreau. I am myself and I am whatever that is. If I am unacceptable, then I guess I'm unacceptable. Why is it that just because I am different, I don't meet someone's idea of standards? Why does it have to be that just because I chose not to be a sheep or a lemming, I must be punished? I don't understand why I must be like everyone else. What if I don't want to be like everyone else? What if being myself is more important to me?
It seems to me that there should be a place for unconventional people. If we did not have some unconventional people, then no innovation, no ability to change, no great leaps forward would ever be accomplished. People like me are the ones who come up with new ways to see the world and new approaches that make it better for everyone. The sad fact of the matter is that many people like me are so ruthlessly suppressed and conditioned NOT to be different, that they spend their entire lives struggling with being a square peg in a round hole. Schools are partially to blame, they cannot cope with a classroom of individuals, so for them to maintain order; they must have everyone paying attention to the same thing at the same time; doing exactly the same sorts of things, narrowing and choking off the boundaries of creativity so that everyone is under control. Society needs lemmings. Let's face it, if we all went off in different directions, we'd never get anything accomplished. But society also needs a few individuals who can make positive innovations and change. We cannot afford to turn all of our people into lemmings; even bread needs yeast in order to rise. We need to recognize that the grand mix of ideas is made stronger by the introduction of alternative thoughts and perspectives rather than suppressing them. We must recognize that "the norm" is an illusion based on an irrational need for security and stability. If humanity is to survive it must stop trying to suppress all deviance in favor of accepting a judicious mix of it. We are only as good as our next innovation after all.