I’ll Take Predictability
Jul 25
Don’t try to steer the river.
~Deepak Chopra
Every morning I sit down at my desk, log onto my computer and start work. Once I find my flow I grab a sticky note from next to my desk top computer and stick it in front of my laptop. Then I start my list. I need to see everything that’s on my agenda for the day, and I need to cross each item off as I go. At the end of the day I will tell my family if I finished my list. If I leave the house, the list comes with me. If something unexpected pops up that keeps me from completing an item on that list I become anxious.
I don’t like change. I need order. I need predictability. I want to steer the river.
This isn’t new for me. I was born like this.
Case in point: When I was almost 2-1/2 my parents changed my predictability and took away my order when they brought me a sister. She was so cute and chunky and I know I loved her because I saw a picture of me smiling with her in my lap. The thing is, my mom was more tired and distracted and my sweet baby sister, well she cried sometimes and she ate all the time and she pooped and peed and my mom? She didn’t have as much time for me anymore. Looking at me, you probably would have never known I had any issues with my suddenly sibling. Smelling me? Well that’s another story. In order to retain control of things, I subconsciously (because I was 2) stopped pooping. I just bent over, clenched and held that crap in (pun totally intended). It’s not like it worked, though. The human body doesn’t allow us to control how many of its functions work. Like pooping. For the duration of my fight, poop snuck out periodically constantly and I was the stinkiest little blonde-haired blue-eyed fair-skinned previously potty-trained 2-year-old on Elkwood Drive.
Fast forward 38 years and I still want to steer the river. I don’t want to move the furniture. I don’t want new clients at work. I want my solo Fridays back. I had to miss my runstreak today because my kid had an earache and needed to see a doctor. I panicked a little when I realized my schedule had to change. I mean it was my kid and kids come first, but…I just really don’t like change.Â
I’m still learning to go with the flow.
I think you might hate me if you actually meant me. My life is disorderly. Very, very disorderly…
No, I would just get to organizing. With apologies.
I hear what you’re saying. I empathise. My sister and I talk a lot about how we need to be in control all the time. If someone messes with the plan I’ve got in my head, there’s a fairly large chance that I’ll have an anxiety attack. Then I’ll somehow manage to pull myself together and rewrite the plan in my head so it matches reality, and then I can move on.
This sometimes takes a few days.
On the other hand, I have no issue with change in general, as long as it’s ME who chooses to make and implement that change. Then I’m still in control. So, bring on the spontaneious craziness, just let me be in charge of it.
(Since my sister, my broither, my father and I all share this need to be in control of our lives or descend into the hellish world of anxiety, getting us together for any long period of unplanned time is a nightmare waiting to happen.)
It’s like I’m your long lost sister.
Well hello there – fancy meeting you at this link-up
I get it. I have sticky notes and daily/weekly/monthly/lifetime lists, which constantly get updated.
It gets exhausting….
Let’s go float on the river!
I’m here becuase of YOU!!!! I’ll meet you on the river.
Ha! You and me are very opposite. I don’t even own post-its…and if I did, I’d lose them. I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of girl, but it takes all kinds of us to make the world go ’round, right?
Yes, you and I would compliment eachother because I’d make you more structured and you’d make me relax more.
I like my routine and schedule too and if things get too out of hand I become a bit of a nutcase. It’s not easy for me to be spontaneous and jump up and do things at the drop of a hat. The hubby gets very frustrated at this sometimes. But I am what I am.
Exactly, I can’t change who I am anymore than I can “steer the river.”
Why not use that great iPhone for your to do list?
Sticky notes are so yesterday!
I get it, even the holding the poo in as a child. FWIW, I remember learning in child dev. course in college that kids can only control 3 things: eating, talking, & poo/pee, so often in new/unhappy situations they may chose to stop/with hold doing these.
I find it hard sometimes to go with the flow, but how relaxing it is when there’s nothing left on that “TO DO” list!
Interesting information. NOW I FEEL NORMAL! I just got home, 9:30 and checked off my final item on the list. Happiness.
I’m picking up what you’re putting down. Predictability is SO comfortable. I’m like you too. I need certain things in place. I need a relatively clean space. I’ve found though, that each time I have another baby (we’re up to 4!) I have to draw a new line. I have to learn again what I can control and what I cannot
It’s tough going sometimes. Thanks so much for joining in the linkup Kim. I’ve lurked on your blog for awhile and I’m just thrilled to have you over at my place 
Lovely post.
I clean a section of the house every day but straighten up constantly.
If I had four kids I would have a rich husband and a housekeeper that came daily – not for the kids, just for the cleaning. I’ve been “lurking” around you’re blog as well! Thanks for having me.
I hate when my schedule changes. Especially when it means my workout gets skipped. It’s my destresser.
ME TOO THOUGHTSY. Sheesh
I like having things orderly and on schedule as well – but no matter how hard I try, it just never flows that way. So I just decided it’s easier to be a moocher. Hey – at least you know where to find me. Ha, ha! Is Noah’s ear thing okay?
He has the very beginning of an external ear infection, which means 10 antibiotic drops every 12 hours. I think they’re wrong and it’s inner ear because it hurts down the neck but I’m not the one with the medical degree, so…
I am becoming more and more in need of “being in control”. I think it was from years and years of my needing to be the “responsible one!” Sorry – must be my fault.
I totally blame you (and my OCD). It’s because you’re so bossy.