Human limits

[phoenix]

gira posted a quote the other day -

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I've never been pleased with my limits. Have carried it to an extreme: believing the ideal me has no real limits, in terms of energy, ability, intelligence. The ideal me has no faults but being 'too much'; an overwhelming, irresistable force. The real me? Her greatest fault is being in no way like the ideal. How could I be? The self I want to be is a goddess.

I resent being merely human. I resent needing to sleep, eat, rest. I'm disgusted by the years of poor habits and shyness in my past. I hate that I cannot change myself as easily as I think of change, that it takes years to become proficient at anything, that rules of biology apply to me.

Saying it helps. When I think of my ideal self in the privacy of my odd head, it's shameful that I don't blaze with fire or change the world on a daily basis. Writing it out, it's clear that it's madness, literally, to expect so much, clear that it's insane and (an understatement) counterproductive to hold myself to such a standard that even beginning anything is fraught with the knowledge of immediate failure.

I'm limited, like any human. I need to sleep for about a third of every day, to eat multiple times a day, to socialise a certain amount. I can work and attend college and socialise and work on a project like Dreamwidth, but there's no way that I can give every one all of the attention it deserves. And that's fine. It can be no other way. And I realise now that the only way I can extend my limits in a way that's actually good for me and those around me is to respect and accept them, for some time. Escape narcissistic delusions: recognise what I, the real me, am capable of. Do that and be proud.

Comments

[xb95]

Very thoughtful.

Be proud of who you are, totally, but never fear to stretch for more. If you never get it then you can still say you tried.

Of course, I still believe that the point of life is to be happy - end of story - and if you are really, truly happy being who you are, without "more", then you have effectively won.

But some of us will never be happy and will strive until we die trying and THAT is what makes us happy. Guess that's how we're wired.

[juliet]

There's a difference between striving for the potentially achievable (but tough), and for the unrealistic, though.

Human beings have limitations: physical (sleep, food, energy) & emotional (amount of attention available, need for recharging, need for people). Not to mention the "24 hours in a day and no one's invented teleportation yet, damn them[0]" type limitations. They vary between people, but one way or another everyone has them.

Trying to overcome those is IMO one of the best ways going to end up causing yourself more problems, and limiting yourself further. Either you'll crash, and then have to take the time to recover; or you'll beat yourself up (not a good motivational technique, as any decent teacher is aware); or you'll spread yourself too thin & not do anything properly.

(Similarly: proficiency in a skill takes time, and if you fail to accept that then you're likely to get fed up with what you perceive as FAIL. At which point you give up, and never do reach the level you'd have reached if you'd been more accepting of the realities of the thing. Or you keep going but you feel miserable the whole time. Which, again, isn't a particularly helpful attitude for learning. As well as meaning that you spend the learning time miserable rather than enjoying yourself!)

So, yes. Realistic acceptance of limitations good, and productive :)

[0] Both my partners are ex-physicists, & has *either* of them sorted this one out yet? Or the time machine? No they have not. Bastards, dunno what they think I keep them around for...