drwex | Journaling project, Day 29

Stop rushing. Breathe. Be where you are. You’re where you’re supposed to be at this moment. There’s a time and place for everything, and every step is necessary. Just keep doing your best, and don’t force what’s not yet supposed to fit into your life. When it’s meant to be, it will be.

What is necessary and true about where you are right now? How does it feel to embrace this present reality?

Well, after yesterday's minor prompt success we're right back to Set DrWex's Teeth On Edge again. The sentence "You’re where you’re supposed to be at this moment" just reeks of unexamined privilege and is frankly offensive to me. Last I looked there were over 500 parents my country deported after kidnapping their children. It's unspeakably vile to say that those parents and children are "where they're supposed to be". Or maybe you're a woman or person of color who has been denied a rightful opportunity, promotion, or other benefit because of your gender or skin color. If I heard someone actually say that you were "supposed to be" in that negative position I think I'd punch them. Earlier this week a report came out of hundreds of priests and other officials in the Catholic church who abused over a thousand children. None of those officials can ever be prosecuted because the statutes of limitations have expired on crimes they committed sometimes decades ago. Go ahead and say that those church officials are where they deserve to be, never mind their victims, and I actually will punch you.

So let's set that aside before I hyperventilate and move on to the next at-least-somewhat-less-awful platitude: "Just keep doing your best, and don’t force what’s not yet supposed to fit into your life." I hate this, not least because there's a high-up manager at my company whose response to reports of difficulties is "do your best". As if we weren't doing our best before now and only just realized that's what we were supposed to do because she bestowed this brilliant advice on us. Fuck ALL the way off. People do their best, as they see it. Maybe a person needs to be reminded they can do better, or can try harder, but let's start with the presumption that people will try their best.

Instead, let me phrase this how I talk to my minions when they ask for things that I can't get for them or I think are beyond them right now. "Let's talk about how we can plan a path to move you toward that thing." That it "doesn't fit" "yet" is not even vaguely the point. The point is that we get things by striving and "...a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

I don't even have time for "meant to be". I don't believe in fate, and barely in karma. I believe in will and work. I believe in taking control and making conscious decisions about what belongs in my life and what does not. I believe that people are freaking miracles and it pays not to underestimate them. None of this is meant to be, none of it gets handed to us. We're dealt one set of cards through our genes and another set through our environment and the question is what do you do with that?

That is what is necessary and true and I hope I retain the mental acuity and physical capacity to continue making it true as long as I live. How does it feel? It feels... good.