Since You Asked

My family, friends and even some co-workers are trying to convince me to quit. I know that’s the right thing to do. If any of them were in my position, I’d tell them in no uncertain terms that it was time to move on. But I can’t seem to do it, despite feeling overqualified and stagnating in my current position, if not decaying. I’ve started filling out grad school applications only to leave them half-finished. I’ve idly looked for jobs online, but the activities I do after hours to keep me sane (writing/presenting papers for conferences, for instance, and running a Web site) are convenient excuses preventing me from conducting an intensive search.

Part of the trouble of being stuck in this job (or seeming to be stuck, or self-defeatingly sticking) is that the number of possibilities once I leave are daunting. Although I’ve considered myself a writer for as long as I can remember and know that I will be writing for the rest of my life no matter what else I end up doing, I’m an intelligent young woman with varied interests and the potential to succeed in just about any field I choose. I was an excellent student (straight A’s, double major, Phi Beta Kappa, the works) with one of those ludicrous laundry lists of extracurricular activities, an itch to stay busy and intellectually stimulated that hasn’t left me (hence the aforementioned projects and hobbies). I can think of a dozen careers and academic disciplines that I might enjoy. So I ask myself: Should I apply to grad school? In what subject? Move somewhere new? Take a new job? What kind? Where? Quit for a set period of time and write? Travel? And so forth. For months I’ve been caught in circular thinking patterns and a paradox of atheistic mortality: I only have one life and want to choose carefully, so I’m putting (too much) thought into the next step — yet it’s only one life, so why am I wasting time at a job that has nothing left to offer me? I am terrified of death and recognize that refusing to move forward is like refusing to accept my mortality, but shouldn’t that very realization somehow enable me to overcome the problem?

It also doesn’t help that I feel under a good deal of pressure to achieve something significant. Like anyone, I want to make a difference, create something I’m proud of (a book, I’ve always assumed), leave a legacy. At school I was part of a community where expectations for our futures were discussed on national or even global scales. Such ambition is pretty new for me, and it’s very stressful to be fueled by this desire to achieve without knowing where to direct it.

Almost everyone I’ve asked for advice has said I should “just choose,” “just take action,” that things will work themselves out, that I’m young and have lots of time, that people go through multiple career changes nowadays and you never know where you’ll end up. One perceptive friend pointed out that I don’t have as many choices as I might like to think, and that by the time I narrow down all these possibilities to realistic opportunities (e.g., getting accepted to particular programs or landing specific job offers), the choice among them will be easy. I know there isn’t one “right” path and that a job or degree doesn’t define me as a person. I just don’t know where or how to start. How do I overcome the inertia?

Paralyzed by Potential

Dear Paralyzed,

I could give you a to-do list and some deadlines. Would you like that? OK. Sketch out three possible book ideas — one or two paragraphs for each book idea — and send them to me by April 1.

Identify five graduate programs you are interested in and rank them, with explanations. Send that to me by April 15.

Also, on the work front: First, back up your contention that there is no upward mobility at your present company by explaining why that is. Are you sure that your company isn’t going to expand in some way that might accommodate you? Then identify five other jobs you might get. Send that to me by April 30.

There. That should justify your existence to God for six weeks or so. Oh, but you don’t believe in God. Well, I kind of don’t either. It’s complicated, no? But we’ll get to that.

I’m serious, by the way. I mean to see if this works. If it does, I can say to readers, here is something you can do with your own friends: Give each other deadlines. Help each other when you are stuck! This is the action approach — the part of the action approach that is crucial. It is not enough to simply say, do something! One has to find out a way to make something happen.

People who say, “Relax, just pick one, you’ve got plenty of time,” may not remember 23 — may not remember just how important the world is at 23, how limitless is the horizon, how fresh is the air, how ready the mind, how spirited the walk, how eager one is to begin. At 23 I rode the hippie bus from Manhattan to San Francisco and ended up in a falling-down Victorian on Fulton and Baker one floor up from a deadhead with bad teeth named Sunshine.

I thought I had it made.

I note with interest this sentence: “I am terrified of death and recognize that refusing to move forward is like refusing to accept my mortality, but shouldn’t that very realization somehow enable me to overcome the problem?” If you think about it for a minute, you will realize the limited effectiveness of such insight. Recognizing you have a broken leg doesn’t cure it. It’s just the beginning of a process of understanding.

But my guess is it’s not really mortality that terrifies you. At 23, I thought I was terrified by death, but the actual things that terrified me were less impressive: failure, weakness, shame, appearing to be mediocre. I romanticized my fears. What I actually feared was not death, but the risks one takes in living.

It was fear of failure, and fear of being judged. It was fear of being mediocre, of joining the human race and being a worker among workers, of not being special, of turning out to have all the same problems and limitations as everyone else. To avoid facing those things, I avoided doing many things. I chickened out. I walked off the ice (I am still lacing up my skates on the sidelines, slowly watching the action out of the corner of my eye.)

So, using my experience as a guide (even though we are different in many ways), I would try to locate some fears closer to home. These actual fears may be harder to accept, though they sound less powerful: fear of choosing the wrong occupation, fear of not living up to your “potential,” fear of wasting these precious years, fear of not being as happy as you are right now.

I did have one thing at 23: I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be a writer. So, it seems, do you.

So why not just write the book? Wouldn’t that be enough right there?

That brings to mind another danger of believing the whole “You’ve got so much potential” thing: Actual accomplishments are much harder than they look. Not only does the world itself seem to resist our efforts to accomplish even the smallest objectives, but you will resist yourself; right now, theoretically, you could do a million things. But in reality you can’t even quit your job. That’s what I mean. Even easy things are hard to do.

So send me your assignments. And if this works, I will recommend that readers do this with each other. I already know that it works in many settings where one gets stuck. I hope it will work here.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

What? You want more?

Why? you may ask. Because he is a complete and utter slob! He grew up on a farm and spends lots of time outside tending to his garden and fixing his many lawnmowers that he has fished out of the trash. I spend hours cleaning, all for him to destroy the house in literally a matter of minutes. It is ridiculous. To add insult to injury he does not wash his hands … EVER. Not even after going poo … I feel like I was hoodwinked and bamboozled, because there is no way in hell I would have ever put myself in a situation to live with one of my parents at this point and time in my life. I have expressed my frustration with the situation, but he doesn’t want to ever talk about it. I want to move, but right now I am not financially stable and I am so close to finishing school, I don’t want to jeopardize my studies.

Grown Woman Living in Daddy’s House

Dear Grown Woman Living in Daddy’s House

I don’t think you are an ungrateful daughter. I think you are a person reacting to a shitty situation in an understandable way.

After years of being self-sufficient you’ve been thrown back into dependent daughterhood. That has got to trigger some feelings you’re not prepared for. That’s got to be tough on the ego. It would be hard for it not to matter how well your father handled it.

And he’s not handling it all that sensitively, one must say. When our  survival is symbolically threatened, we sometimes reassure ourselves by making our immediate surroundings clean and healthy and spotless. It’s a good thing to do if you’re feeling threatened and insecure; it can cheer you up to clean house. So here’s an interesting symbolic contradiction: Here you have come to your dad to help you survive, and he is providing for you, yet also doing things that symbolically threaten your survival: Dirt, poo, infection, disease, loss of control!

Subconsciously it may be felt as aggression: Your dad is threatening your survival rather than nurturing it. He’s bringing danger into the house. He’s bringing dirt and disease into the house, meaning, symbolically, into your body. So he’s polluting you when you are trying to regain your strength. The literal-minded may quibble but we’re talking about emotions that take place below our conscious awareness, in the language of symbols.

On the surface he’s doing you a favor, and good for him. But he’s also not admitting your personhood or your power: He’s retaining his own power over his own place. That’s the prerogative of property ownership in a society that worships property. You are expected to grant him the prerogatives of ownership. But he’s not accommodating you, really, as a person. It may even feel as though he’s trying to push you out.

His hospitality may be begrudging; his messing up the house may be passive-aggressive; he probably wants to go on living as he is accustomed to living. There may also be some unspoken disapproval of your reversal of fortune, and perhaps a little unspoken “I told you so,” if you have been too independent for his liking. He may even be enjoying being the father to a relatively helpless daughter once again — a daughter who cannot force him to wipe his feet.

Assuming your parents are divorced, is he also repeating a pattern of conflict he had with your mother? Could be. They could have had fights over just such things. If those fights led to their divorce, you may also be experiencing uncomfortable memories of an earlier symbolic threat to your survival. Also, not to jump ahead, but this could also be a preview of the role reversal that happens as your dad ages and weakens and you take on the role of caretaker, being sure he washes his hands and wipes his feet, as a mother would do in raising a child.

But that’s just the messy symbolic stuff it’s my job to dredge up. On the surface, in the practical present, you’re a capable adult woman in control of her life and career. You’ve made yourself a plan that requires you to do some compromising. That’s what this is: It’s a conscious compromise. You’re still making your own choices. This is just temporary.

You’ve found shelter in a bad time. Your dad is your ally. He loves you. He’s providing you a place.  He’s doing what he can, in his way.

Hang in there, finish your course of study, thank your dad and stay positive. When you look back on this, as uncomfortable as it is now, you’ll be grateful there was a place for you to go. With the passage of time it may even become a fond if bittersweet memory.

I know she loved me more than anything, and she sacrificed a lot to try to give me a good life, but as a kid, I felt as if I was battling her alcoholism for her. I would constantly find single-serving wine bottles stuffed between couch cushions, and it was an almost nightly occurrence for her to drink herself to sleep, leaving the house a mess and me to throw away the empty bottles and rinse out the glasses she would leave next to the couch. After she would go to bed, it was usually a coin flip whether or not she would rise from her sleep to stalk around the house staring blindly at everything and shouting incoherently. More than once she, thoroughly drunk, thought I was a burglar and tried to attack me. The first time this happened I was 11, and in her mind she had gone back in time and thought I was going to steal her baby (me). She nearly strangled me.

What made my childhood much easier was the fact that I had grandparents nearby who did not seem to struggle with alcoholism or poverty or depression. They were good people who seemed to rise above all the stupidity we are capable of. In fact they helped my mother make ends meet on a few occasions, and they always seemed to come to the rescue when we were in a jam. I felt more often than not that my grandparents were like my real parents, and my mother was like some big crazy sister who loved me a lot but was still trying to figure things out.

And from a young age, the lesson they kept quietly teaching me was that alcoholism was a demon in our family. It ran in our blood, and had ruined cousins, uncles and sisters. And the best way to avoid this fate was not to start at all.

And for my part I promised myself that I would never drink, or smoke, or do drugs.

And I never did.

A lot of people may not believe me, but I have never so much as sipped a beer, or taken a drag from a cigarette. And there is my problem. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t drink, and I feel like I’ve put myself in this box where I will never drink.

This was fine for my early 20s, and in some ways I felt superior for not having blown hundreds of dollars at the bars, or woken up with hangovers, or been so drunk I couldn’t remember what happened to me. I have always been in control of my life, and that is something I take pride in.

But I also feel like there is this whole side to life that I may be missing out on, and that maybe I should relax these rules I’ve created for myself. I feel that a lot of people can’t relate to the fact I don’t drink, and I also would sometimes really like to be able to have a beer with my friends and be their equal, and not this always-sober outsider. A few weeks ago at a champagne brunch with friendly strangers who didn’t know I don’t drink, the waiter poured me a glass of champagne, and when they toasted I held it up and looked at it for a long time before I realized my wife was staring at me.

What to do?

Dear What to Do,

Testing yourself for alcoholism is like testing yourself for flammability. You’re probably not. But what if you are?

“Given the fact that alcohol-dependence seems highly heritable,” why take the risk?

Why not instead ask what needs alcohol might satisfy, and then find other ways to satisfy those same needs? Why not seek safe, life-enhancing alternatives to drinking? Why not read Abraham Maslow and design your life around the quest for peak experiences?

We raise our glasses and drink ceremonially to sanctify some event or passage. We all drink from the same bottle. By imbibing the same drink, we are joined; it is a kind of sacrament. You can mime the gestures but something pulls you to fully engage. Of course it does. This is not just about getting a little champagne in your mouth. It is a powerful ritual.

My suggestion is to find even better ways, more direct, honest and compelling ways to have this same ritual bonding and expression of shared esteem and purpose. I suggest you make this a lifelong pursuit. Make it a way of undoing for good the perhaps multigenerational history of alcoholism in your family.

This way, if those who dispute the role of genes in alcoholism are correct, and behavioral factors are more important, then you will still be doing something to eradicate certain behaviors that were leading to case after case of alcoholism. You will be finding something that members of your family have a particular need for, and satisfying that need.

Look for something that seems cool but not too cool, something you’ve always wanted to do, something you’re drawn to, that’s maybe a little outside your normal range but not totally kooky and weird.

For instance, it may be possible to participate in the ecstatic communality of a sweat lodge. I don’t know. Maybe a sweat lodge would be too weird for you. I don’t know how much facial hair you have, or what your body mass index is. I’m just saying, identify the underlying principle and then find something that suits your social tastes.

That there are things wrong in the world, that there are things so awful in this world that knowledge of them drives us to want to blot them out of consciousness. Read today’s piece by Noam Chomsky, for instance, for a reminder of how thinly “normal American life” veils our history of brutal atrocities.

How are you supposed to think about these things and not feel as though you are going mad? How are you supposed to have a conscience and not feel trapped by history? How are you to take all this in, as a young person? How to reconcile knowledge of evil done in one’s name with the innocent desire to believe in one’s country, to identify with one’s countrymen, to feel strong and patriotic and confident about the future?

These, too, are legitimate questions. So, my friend, I urge you to take seriously the genetic and environmental risk factors for alcoholism, and actively seek ways to have ecstatic experiences in this insane world without killing yourself. Adopt adaptive behaviors that don’t make things worse.

I like to do things that are stressful to the kidneys such as drink coffee, get drunk now and then, trip on plants that are metabolized by the kidneys and liver (this is part of my spiritual practice). Do I say nothing and hope that, come March when she’s testing possible donors, we are not a match? Or do I strain the friendship by admitting to her that I have misgivings about my promise?

Willing Initially

Dear Willing Initially,

You did a good thing. You offered to help.

You may or may not be a compatible donor. But you said these words out of a genuine spirit of generosity and kindness. This is a pretty amazing thing about human beings — that we are inclined toward helping each other. It’s a good thing.

It may turn out that you are a match, but it’s statistically unlikely. “In the case of cousins, your chance of being identical is 1 in 16. In the case of a friend, then your chances vary depending on how common your HLA is,” according to this helpful booklet from Stanford’s Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

In either case, having second thoughts doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. To donate a kidney is a big thing and it’s natural to have second thoughts. So wait until it’s time for all the potential donors to be screened, and get screened, and then deal with it once you know if you’re a potential donor.

This question and answer page from the University of Maryland Medical Center is very informative. As is this one. 

Give yourself some credit. You spoke out of an impulse toward compassion and selflessness.

If you are indeed a match and you can’t go through with it, no one will fault you for it. But your initial impulse shows you have within you the capacity to help. It’s a precious thing. Think of the worldwide effect of such impulses, if they were carried out millions of times over. Think of the things we could solve if we honored these selfless impulses and our societies were organized to realize them. Think how much needless suffering could be stopped.

You say you use psychedelic plants as part of your spiritual practice. Perhaps one of these trips you can inquire of your spirit guides what is the right thing to do. But you needn’t decide yet. Wait. More will be revealed.

I am very eager to have babies with the man I love. With us now moving, kids are on the back burner because we won’t have health insurance until one of us lands a job with benefits. We had been trying to get pregnant until the decision to move was made because I have decent benefits with my current hateful job. (One of the reasons I haven’t quit, the other main one being that I’m trying to hold this job out till we can move.) I really want kids soon; I have wanted to be a mother since I was 5. But the stress of life and my failing body seem to want other things for me. I had injured my back at work and now am in physiotherapy to heal it, yet I’m still obligated to work my full shifts. Those eight-hour shifts literally drain me. I haven’t had a period in 3.5 months (my doctor insists it’s stress-related). And most recently, my pap test came back with abnormal cells on my cervix. No further tests have been done, but my doctor thinks my back, lack of period and abnormal cells are at least partly because of too much stress. Hard not to be stressed when all these symptoms have made me worry and fret even more about never being able to have children! The more that I worry, the more stressed my body becomes. The more symptoms of the stress I experience, the more I worry. (A huge catch-22.) One of my worst fears is to end up being barren.

On to my other issue. My fiancé and I both smoke marijuana regularly. I will note here that we do not smoke cigarettes at all, nor do we drink alcohol very often. Although I have heard that it can prevent couples from conceiving, I only “slowed it down” when we were trying to get pregnant. My fiancé seems to have his usage under control. He is able to use on a part-time basis and not every evening and every weekend. I am a different story altogether. I use (abuse) marijuana for stress. I rush to get home after work to have the bad memories of the day dissolve into higher thoughts. I am not high at work, but evenings and weekends are full of my usage. It’s the way I’ve taught myself to deal. Although I don’t think marijuana is an “evil drug” that “leads to other drug usage,” I know that I am misusing it. I have never felt the need to try any other drug (besides alcohol and caffeine). But I barely even notice the effects any more. Despite that, I can’t imagine quitting it altogether. I know that if I were pregnant I would not smoke at all, because there is another human being involved who would be affected by it.

But without marijuana, how would I deal with life’s stress? Plus there is some part of me that feels like marijuana is not bad. You ought to know that in my family, a few other people smoke marijuana. My aunt and cousin probably use it once daily, and my mom and brother once or twice a week, and my dad on occasion. While they never permitted any drug usage as a teenager, I found out and smoked with family after turning 19. Obviously this is a huge part of the reason why I can’t seem to convince myself that marijuana is “bad.”

This new city will not have any marijuana contacts for my fiancé and me, and it is my plan to stop smoking when we move. But really, I don’t want to stop at all, and I feel like I’m lying to myself by thinking that a new city will stop me from finding a way to do it. Plus, my fiancé is moving first, and we will be apart for a month (we’ve never been apart for longer than 10 days in the past four years). I know that with him gone, I will want to smoke even more. Especially because I feel like I want to get as much smoking in before I “can’t” anymore.

I know several people who use marijuana more than I do and who firmly believe that no one can get addicted to it. I guess I’m not so sure about this, but I would like to believe it because then I’m just a hippie and not an addict. I worry about the usage affecting the physiotherapy on my back, but since we aren’t trying to get pregnant, I still smoke whenever I want to. My fiancé knows that I smoke too much, he knows that I KNOW that I smoke too much too. But month after month he still brings it home for us. I have tried to quit before, asking him to keep it all hidden and out of sight. This always fails, because I will find it and sneak some or bug and bug him to get it out of hiding for me.

I don’t think I can stop until he stops bringing it into the house and we get rid of all the marijuana paraphernalia that is around our place. If my fiancé doesn’t want to quit with me, I would be disappointed. But as long as he kept everything out of our house and cars, I think I could do it. I really do want children in the long run and better physiotherapy results in the short term. What do I do?

Moving and Shaking

Dear Moving and Shaking,

You are using marijuana to relieve stress.

Stress is your problem. Whether you stop smoking marijuana or not, you need to learn more and better ways to relieve stress.

Start doing tai chi; start doing yoga; meditate; take naps; breathe deeply a lot; do biofeedback. If you are doing any of these activities already, don’t conclude that since you’re doing it a little it must not work. Instead, do it more.

You may need higher doses of yoga to get relief. Also, if you are consuming lots of caffeine, see about cutting back. Try substituting some herbal teas for caffeinated beverages now and then. Notice the difference. Especially in the afternoon, cut out the caffeine so you can get a better night’s sleep.

You will notice things about yourself this way. You will notice the different qualities of consciousness that arise from various techniques. It will be entertaining and interesting. You will notice a gradual improvement in your ability to go through life in a relaxed, worry-free way. Unpleasant activities like work and dealing with power-hungry blockheads will go more smoothly.

During this time, you might want to experiment with not smoking for a time. Pick an occasional time when you are stressed out, and instead of smoking, do 15 minutes of meditation, or some tai chi or yoga.

Don’t try to quit all at once, especially not on your own. Just learn some better relaxation techniques. Take it easy. Look for gradual improvement.

Once you’ve found other ways to relieve stress, you may not feel so fearful about the idea of quitting marijuana for good. Try going without for a few days at a time and see how that goes. You can always smoke. But experience what it’s like to handle life without it. Try to get accustomed to that feeling. You may feel slightly on edge, but take a deep breath of fresh air instead of a hit of weed.

The thing is, whether you call yourself an addict or not, changing habitual behavior is hard, and it’s especially hard to do alone. It’s hard to do without a program. It takes time, effort and support, and there are ups and downs. So I wouldn’t recommend trying to stop smoking marijuana on your own, or just with your fiancé.

As you say, for a variety of reasons, you are going to want to quit. So what I’m suggesting is that you prepare, in these ways, for the day when you will need to quit. I’m sure marijuana gives you other things besides stress relief; it probably gives you a heightened sense of the beauty of life, of tastes and sounds, and of general well-being. These things you may need to seek out in life; I find that there are other ways to feel these momentary highs. Seek them out.

For quitting things, as you probably know, I favor the 12-step method because it has added benefits: It helps you get your life together and is a lasting program of living. It is a community. It works for a lot of things.

When and how you quit is up to you. I can say that based on experience, it is definitely possible. You can quit and lead a normal, happy life, when you’re ready to. My bottom line is just that A) You should acquire new stress-relief methods first, before trying to quit, and B) what was B? Oh yeah, B) Don’t try to quit on your own. If and when you do decide to quit, do it with a group or a program behind you.

And, hey: Good luck. You sound like really nice people and I wish you the best in life. And say hello to the kids when they come. And say hello to the mountains.

Yeah, I know this isn’t all my fault, that it takes two to make a bad relationship, and all that. And certainly there are women — most of them — who wouldn’t even look my way. Great for them. But for those who are willing to look my way, don’t I have a basic human obligation to keep them safe from my horribleness and inevitable failures? Without exception I say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing or just collapse.

So. Given that I contribute nothing to the world but disappointment and misery, and I can’t control my desire for companionship and attention, shouldn’t I just kill myself? Isn’t that the moral thing to do at this point?

A Dangerous Nothing

Dear Dangerous Nothing,

You, my friend, are exactly perfect the way you are. You’re not a moron!

Look on the bright side: You have a technique. Don’t wait to show her your bumbling, fumbling, weak and incompetent side.  Spill your soup on her now! On the first date. Roll your car over your own foot and have her take you to the emergency room. Come out of the bathroom with tape all over your face. Why? Because a person with tape all over his face looks funny!

It’ll break the ice. She’ll thank you for it!

Pour it on  about what a loser you are! That’ll get her going about how you just have low self-esteem and you’re being too hard on yourself.

If you are asking women to marry you and promising to fly them in your private jet to your villa in Portugal and saying you’ll pick them up at 8 o’clock sharp the next morning and then you are not showing up, then women are going to bed thinking about your private jet and then not getting to ride in it. That’s bad.

You should slap yourself in the face once very hard if you are doing that. Then you should force yourself to sell your imaginary private jet at a loss of millions of imaginary dollars.

But killing yourself wouldn’t make any sense at all, and it wouldn’t make anyone happy, not even you.

Besides, there are worse people.