Self Sabotage

This is a topic I wanted to discuss for some time now, but never attempted to write about.  Maybe it's difficult to discuss why people sabotage their own lives, or maybe it's because it's hard to admit that we all sabotage our lives. 

So how do people self sabotage?  There are different situations to consider when asking how.  There are personal relationships, office relationships, friendships, careers, and family.  Each one has many different ways to push the self destruct button and watch the countdown till the end.  But let's start with the easiest one to talk about; family.

Family is one of the easiest categories to sabotage; mostly because we know they tend to forgive more often than turn and walk away.  We find ways to pick apart relationships with our siblings due to jealousy, anger over something petty, or even blaming them for something they did or failed to do for you.  Parents are a whole other subject.  Most of the time kids blame their parents for everything.  It starts when they're teenagers that don't get their way.  Freud always attributed a child's psychological issues to be based solely on the parents' failure.  As adults we tend to gravitate to the continuation of blaming them for our issues or realizing they had our best interest at heart and did the best they could.  (The continued debate for this topic can be discussed at a later time).

In terms of careers, there are a few ways to self destruct.  For starters, you could keep all the anger and resentment you have towards your company or boss inside until you snap.  When it unleashes, it's like verbal diarrhea; spewing uncontrollably until either you have nothing left to say or you're fired and security escorts you from the building.  Another way is by being afraid to take chances because you become too complacent in your current job title and performance.  This is one of the most common ones.  People get too comfortable and don't want to to step up to the next level at work because they feel it will require more work, responsibility or could equate to a higher possibility of scrutiny. 

Office relationships and office friendships are typically a time bomb waiting to go off at any moment and are usually self explanatory.  Being friends inside and out of the business is fine as long as you remember to stay within the boundaries during work hours and not let it influence your performance or behavior during that time. 

Finally the biggest ways to self sabotage are personal relationships and personal life.  There are way too many to go into, but I will go over a few examples.  The first being the personal life.  The biggest issue people face is procrastination which goes hand in hand with laziness.  Both start when we're younger.  In today's world, most kids are too used to playing their Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation when they have free time.  It's one of the things they look forward to doing after school.  They can play what they want, interact with friends or strangers online and never leave the comfort of their bedroom/house.  But by relying on these devices, kids take their focus off of doing work and caring more about play time.  It becomes the same when they get older.  As a child, the procrastination takes the form of waiting till the last minute to do homework, reports, or studying.  As an adult, it takes the form of forgetting to pay bills, accruing high amounts of debt, going late to work, or simply letting simple tasks snowball into something bigger.   I have found myself in many of these situations in life and have learned the hard way many times you can't fall into the pit of procrastination.


Finally the personal relationships have a few forms.  The first is picking fights based on insecurities, or not getting over past situations from an ex.  Everyone goes through theses.  Everyone has baggage that they need to deal with and most of the time can't until they work through it in either a rebound, the next relationship, therapy, or other creative ways.  The next level deals with insecurities on higher levels.  The people in the relationship tend to think the other person is too good for them or think one of them is not good enough for the other.  If you put someone too high on a pedestal it makes them feel they have so much to live up to and if they can't be that, then they fail.  On the opposite hand if you view them or yourself on a lower level, the person might feel like they're not good enough and tend to walk away.  The final level has more to do with the what if situation and cold feet scenarios.  The what if situation falls on people who have been in a relationship for a while and wonder what their life would be if they were single.  It typically happens when they are either unhappy in the relationship or has many friends that are single.  They tend to go out with the single group and hang around them wishing they could live that life once again.  The cold feet scenario are found in the people who are about to get married.  They're faced with the realization they're about to settle down with one person for the rest of their life and try to come up with any reason not to. 

Now if you made it to this point, you're probably asking yourself what the hell is the point of all this or why the hell did you keep reading?  My hope is that you did read everything.  Did you see yourself in any of those situations?  I bet you did.  Maybe you found yourself listed a couple of times.  The point I wanted to create was that everyone self sabotages their life.  We all push the self destruct button at one point or another.  But there's always the abort button.  We can pull that steering wheel back, avoid the collision, and put ourselves back on course before it's too late.  My hope is that by reading this, you can notice when you're being self destructive or sabotaging and correct yourself.

Businesses violating medical rights.

I've noticed a bit of controversy on the news as of late, and it's something I wanted to vent about on here.  There have been news reports about various businesses (that will remain nameless) that are forcing their employees to go to their doctors by a specific date and get physicals done.  In my opinion that is something people should be doing on a yearly basis regardless just to make sure they are in good health.  However, there is more to this story. 

According to employees, they are being forced to report their weight, body fat percentage, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose.  If they fail to do so, they are fined an extra $40-$50 every month on their medical insurance which can equal up to $600 a year. 

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't medical information supposed to be kept confidential between the doctor and patient?  How is this legal for a business to force you to go to the doctors and report your private information to the company?

The answers these companies give is that they want a healthier workfoce and they will not see the medical records or the numbers.  My response is, then why force them to report the information in the first place?  I believe this is another way for businesses to secretly figure out which employees are too overweight for their company and find alternative ways to terminate their employment. 

These companies are telling their employees to go to the doctor and use your medical insurance or pay a fine every month until you do so.  How is that legal.  When has been the insurance company or place of employment's decision to force their employees to visit a physician? 

This is something the government needs to step in and take action against.  People who have medical insurance should not be forced to report their medical information to anyone and should not be mandated to visit a doctor before a set date or be penalized and fined for not complying. 

Thankfully my employers do not require such a thing and trusts their employees to manage their own lives without having someone standing over them.  I urge everyone who reads this to fight back by contacting their local politicians, Congressmen, or Senators and telling them this is unlawful for companies to force their employees to go to the doctors, to report their medical information or pay a fine for not complying. 

March...What a year it's been.

Now this post will not be about writing.  Instead it will be a personal note; a momentary glimpse into my life.  With today being the first of March, I wanted to take some time to reflect on one of the best years in my life.  No this won't be some long rant or discussion recapping the whole year.

Instead I want to sit and talk about the most spontaneous day of my life that ended in perfection.  It started out on a bright and sunny Saturday morning.  I drove out to Queens to pick up a girl I had been seeing for a couple of weeks.  We had tickets to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at Discovery Times in New York City.  I was so nervous, because it had been a long time since I was down this road with someone and felt this strongly about any woman.  We took the train in.  My knees were popping up and down; causing my body to stumble around on the A train seats.  She laughed that I kept falling over with every turn.  My hands shook nervously as I grabbed her hand.  When I did, all the anxiousness died down and a smile crept over my face.

When we arrived at Discovery Times, we found our tour to be packed full of people.  We were one of the last in line from our group and was forced to wait behind others that meticulously examined every clay pot.  We stood there trying to do the same; thinking the other person found them of interest.  But my annoyance at the people in front of us increased and I grew impatient.  I asked her if she really cared about the pots and she replied no.  I took her hand and stormed away from the group and headed downstairs to what we really wanted to see; the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It was magnificent to see something from so long ago; still preserved and translated for our viewing pleassure.  We looked on and read the full translation of the Ten Commandments and other scriptures. 

After our tour concluded, we left the building but didn't want to go home.  We saw the Wax Museum on the next block over.  I had never been there before and always wanted to check it out.  We agreed to go.  The second figure we saw and took pictures with was King Kong.  I wanted to get a good laugh out of her and made it look like I was really being captured by his hand.  We continued this throughout the day and loved every moment of our day. 

Once we left, we got ourselves lost looking for Max Brenners and ate homemade cookies that she made for me prior to the day before finally settling on an Applebees. 

But it was the walk home from the train that I found most interesting.  The nervousness returned.  I knew the moment I worried about was coming closer.  Our hands were intwined together and I could feel the sweat starting to form.  I waited until we were a block away from her house before saying; I know this is going to sound like we're in high school, but will you be my girlfriend.  She agreed and the weight lifted off of my shoulders. 

Since that moment, I have had the best time of my life.  Each day, each moment I see her increases my happiness.  I have never met a woman that I cared so much for and love.  She has helped me see the beauty in artwork, helped me take a moment to stop and explore the city, and even helped me become more spontaneous.  We spent days going into the city for one thing and spending an entire day going off on our own and creating such a memorable time like we did when I asked her out. 

So for that I want to say thank you, I love you, and Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.