ALL THE SKILLS THAT GOT YOU PROMOTED ARE NO LONGER RELEVANT

 Today was eye opening. 

It also brought out the competitive side of me. I need to take control of my job. I have spent too long fighting fires. I need to spend more time making things less flammable. 

I realise that as much as I would like to believe that I am able to multi-task and I am actually able to well enough, the unfinished business looming in the background throws me. 

I cannot focus on the task at hand because my neuro divergent brain is still harping on some unfinished thing in the background. 

I realise that maybe the anti-anxiety medications didn't actually make that much of a difference because it was not the correct medication for me. I need ADHD medication not anxiety meds. 

Just Me.

ADHD

Is it hypochondria or am I actually as ADHD as I think I am?

All the symptoms fit. All the side effects. 

I have the accompanying ADHD body and depression. 

I don't know why it matters to me. Who cares if I actually have ADHD? What material difference does that make? Is there any way knowing this is going to make things easier for me?

Yet, I feel relieved. I feel relieved knowing I am not the only who feels this way. That I have a community to reach out to. 

Not that I am ever going to. 

Just Me!

DECEPTION

Propaganda, misinformation, disinformation. These are the big guns of the political spin machine.  

Whatever happened to "The Truth Shall Set You Free." I try to convince myself that there must have been a time when truth was the only thing that mattered. I would like to believe that at some point we were not cynical 'realists'. 

I know better though. Deception comes entirely too easily to us. It is something that we learn in the crib. We learn manipulation as we learn to walk and talk and feed ourselves. Of course most of us, only use deception in the most dire of circumstances or in the most trivial of matters. 

There are however a select few who are true artistes; who turn deception into an art form. 

Just Me. 

THE GREAT RESIGNATION

Millenials have a skewed sense of reality. 

Millenials are pampered and spoiled. 

Millenial employees are holding employers to ransom with their unreasonable demands.

Businesses are at the mercy of staff with poor committment levels and high wage expectations. 

These are so many of the observations that are floating around recently. Anytime you have a conversation with a business owner, this is the response most of them have. The general consensus is that it is all the fault of the employees who are 'money-grabbing, lazy and unreasonable'. The generational gap has the younger generations painted as more interested in social media without a solid grasp of reality. 

I am of an older generation yet I empathise with both sides of this issue. I understand that the trauma of being the pioneer generation has set most of these 'business owners' down a a spiralling of path of us against them mentality. 

What triggered this bout of introspection?

I heard about the absolute disaster situation happening at my penultimate place of work. The company is 12 years old and should be well established by this point. However, the staff are on the whole unhappy, dissatisfied and on the lookout for greener pastures. The owners however, have an almost universal world view that the staff are ungrateful and unreasonable and lazy. 

However, I think it is the one of the silver linings of this pandemic. Everyone has had a rude awakening and a shock to their system. People are reevaluating their circumstances. People are learning that there other ways to survive and different perspectives. While everyone understands the importance of money and how necessary it is for survival, the pandemic freed people from the sense of the conventional. We are all more comfortable with uncertainty. 

Employers who understand this and adapt to it are the ones who are successfully retaining quality employees. I am not saying that there aren't people out there who are unreasonable and spoilt. In general, employees are no longer willing to put up with terrible working conditions. The pandemic has driven home what exactly it means to have a toxic work environment. 

Employers have no choice but to roll with the punches. Currently, the change is cosmetic and reluctant. Employers are insituting stop gap measures out of fear. However, once this measure start showing positive outcomes, these changes will start taking root. It will be for the better. Like all change, it is slow to happen and it is frustrating trying to get the ideas to take root. 

Just Me. 

INDIFFERENCE

The Secrets of Dumbledore

This started off with the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

When did the segue happen? More importantly, why the segue?

And honestly, I think all this Dumbledore being the all fired chosen one is annoying. 

Harry Potter being the all fired chosen one was super annoying as well. 

And here we have Newt who is incredibly talented and amazingly under valued. 

I don't know if this trilogy was intended from the start or just sort of made up as they went along. 

It feels like the the latter, truth be told. 

I would expect that someone of Rowling's caliber to be able to put the story together a bit better than that. 

It was disconcerting in the very least to suddenly find Tina Goldstein out of the picture for Newt's triumph. I understand that she's promoted and it's an important position, but Newt is the man she's in love with, embarking on a life threatening mission to save her sister! 

It's all very 2 dimensional. It was a slow build and I felt like that they ran out of time to cover everything they really wanted to. 

On the more liberal side of things, there is the gay romance between Dumbledore and Grimelwald. There's no accounting for taste of course, but it is utterly mind boggling that Albus found anything to love in Gellert and vice versa. 

This is another prime example of the 2 dimensional characterisation. 

I did not hate it but I did not love it. 

I am indifferent. 

Just Me. 

SUITABILITY

Can everyone do everything?

Should everyone want to everything?

I read somewhere recently the harmful side effects of the mindfulness movement. 

One of the side effect appears to be depression. I admit, I do not see how the one leads to the other. 

However, I am a great believer in moderation and I do know that any principle misapplied can lead to damage. 

To that end, this idea that anyone can do anything and all skills can be learned, is a rather damaging prospect. 

On the face of it, it seems like a positive, energising, uplifting mantra. However, not everyone can learn everything. Not everyone can do everything. Indeed not everyone wants to. So when you are put in an environment where you are surrounded by people who tell you that you can do it and you almost believe it and you fail, you are left with no one to blame but yourself. 

All that heartache has nowhere to go but inwards. 

Just Me. 

RECOVERY

Vengeance. 

It is a powerful motivator. 

It compels incredible acts. Acts of unmitigated cruelty, acts of reckless courage and acts of destructive rage.

The trauma manifests itself in many different ways. 

The manifestations of trauma is myriad and shocking. 

The process of healing tears down this outflows of trauma and shocks you. 

The process of healing is quite a bit more frightening than the trauma itself. 

You can't hide from the healing. You have to experience it. 

It is suddenly shockingly clear that you have hidden your personality behind trauma responses. 

What do you do then? 

How do you distinguish the trauma response from who you are? 

Just Me.