Just Be There Blog

Head start on the New Year's Resolution

I am confronted with a couple topics requiring change within myself this next year. Both deal with personality and character changes. These, of course, are the most difficult changes a person can tackle. Why am I endeavoring to make such changes? For one, I want to create for myself and others a better work environment.

I have come a long way in regards to one of the changes, which I am choosing to concentrate further change. This is in respect to my daily "internal climate." I have many more smiling days than I have sad and/or frustrating days. I wish to improve my behaviors on those days of frustration (on the edge of rage) and sadness. The thing is, my brain works against me on those days. I need to develop a personal strategy that will enable my brain to work for me when I am blue or on the edge of my rage. A mantra of sorts comes to mind. Something I can chant (sort of like the concept of counting to ten) when I feel my anger trying to overwhelm the personae I wish to portray; especially at work.

Now I understand that when the grief for the losses I've suffered in my life presents itself, I'm not going to be able to avoid "feeling" the anger and the sadness. However, I will be able to act in a way that others won't have to "know" I'm having a "bad" or "off" day. Basically, I am going to teach myself how to be a hypocrite. I am going to be intentionally dishonest by wearing a prepared mask of happiness so others won't know what my internal world is really all about. I'm going to play the part of the Clown. Somewhere between ages 30 and now I lost this survival technique. I'm thinking about the time I came out was when I dropped the "face of the clown." In fact, my clown face had been so strong at that time in my life, that I was just as surprised as my counselor to discover I was gay and always had been.

The more difficult part of my self change is overcoming the aspect of brain shut down. Negative emotion numbs my intellect and conscious thought process. I hope to combat this by actively, mentally, reviewing the steps required to perform the activities I have set before me. When I am able to jump into a project and complete that project in a timely and accurate manner when emotional storms rage inside, then I know I have perfected the "Clown" and I have successfully accomplished my resolution for an outward character/personality change.

Then I can add to my character that I am a practitioner of hypocrisy.