I’m not sure where I picked up the phrase “quality problem”, but I’ve been using it recently to describe the doldrums I have found myself in. I’ve written previously about the not-so-helpful habit of comparing my “quality” problems to other people’s “real” problems.
Like some prior advice to myself, I’m going to “stop it“.
I’m no longer going to use that label. It’s undermining and not helpful.
It’s made me think about other phrases like “First World problems”, that are used to dismiss someone’s emotional state. How dare you complain about anything when there are people literally starving elsewhere?
And yet, if a person is experiencing something that is painful, it is real to them. It’s almost like an abusive parent shouting at a crying child, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
That child needs to be held and comforted, not taught that they are ultimately on their own and no one is coming to help them and there is no safety anywhere. This is not the lesson I teach my children and I still carry my own scars from learning such horrible lessons.
From now on, I’m going to be more careful with my language – towards others, and certainly towards myself.
This is revealing of how limiting and clumsy the language we use can be. We default to handy labels when what we’re discussing is far more complex.
Someone recently told me that my problems, being of the existential kind, are really as big as it gets. Yet I’ve been hard on myself (the voice inside me shouting “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”). I’ve been forcing things and trying too hard. I then feel bad about myself when I don’t get the result I wanted, as if it was my failure. As if it were that simple. It’s not.
What if I could instead metaphorically hold and comfort myself? Tell myself “It will be OK”.
I feel comforted even thinking that. I’m comforted realizing that, once again, this article came out of me – the thing I most needed to hear. And in turn, I get to share this with you.
A couple of months ago, I chose to listen to myself instead of sticking to a self-imposed deadline for my most recent book project. That book would have been released next week. Yet, that would have sent me on a different path and denied me the opportunity to hold and comfort myself.
This entire article, and all of my recent ones, have been forms of acknowledgment that I’m going through something. Instead of feeling bad about not having a conventional accomplishment to share, I’m becoming proud of this body of work created, piece by piece, without knowing where it’s leading me.
As of today, that amounts to a total of ten articles on this topic, including tools I’ve developed and personal insights.
Ten articles of me holding that part of myself, comforting myself, and simultaneously sharing everything I’ve learned with you and the world.
Ten articles that would have never have had happened had I continued to dismiss myself.
I’m struck now in this moment of the power of that realization.
I’m curious, how has my process impacted you?
