Expectations

I am sick of trying to live up to other people's expectations. I realise now that I tried my whole life to be the person I thought the world wanted me to be. But at this point in my life I have had full on depression 2 times and countless ups and downs along the way.

I used to be a programmer and a gamer. I would play games every day. I will probably always game, but for right now I am taking a break from it.

It always felt weird to me that I became successful with Silly Linguistics despite having no professional training in linguistics. But in other ways, my life has prepared me for this. I love media, be it movies, books, video games or even just memes. They all communicate. They all require time and effort to get right. I love thinking about media and exploring media.

I like programming and video games, but there was always something missing for me. I did a lot of things in my life because I thought it was a good idea. I started my masters in Computer Science in 2010 and a year later it was almost a complete disaster. I knew something was wrong. I started seeing a psychologist and they helped me work through some of my issues.

Some things don't come out so easily so it was a few years later that it all came to a head and I got full on depression again. This was in 2014. I had to leave me job. I wasn't capable anymore. I just sat at home. I was sad and disappointed that I had to leave a job, career, I suppose you could even call it a lifestlye I had been a part of for 14 years.

I knew I had to change. I didn't realise that this is what I was doing, but in hindsight now I realise that I was getting rid of the past. I was getting rid of who I thought I was. I love the challenge of programming and the excitement of video games, but I became too involved. I didn't let myself pursue what I wanted to pursue. I told myself what parts to follow.

I had a kind of codependent relationship with programming and video games, and these relationships are selfish. You only take what you need and leave nothing behind.

Maybe my psyche chose language because it is almost the opposite of programming. Languages are messy, flexible and can't be summed up easily. Languages reflect people's attitudes and people's attitudes end up affecting language. Language is inextricably linked to culture.

Another thing which I think is a breath of fresh air for my psyche is that language exist in the same way an elephant exists. What I mean by that is that no amount of arguing or spin or delusion on your part will change the fact that elephants exist in the way they do. No amount of essays or talk will change the fact that elephants exist and have tusks. Languages do what they do.

Why does English have phrasal verbs, irregular verbs, stupid spelling and conjugation purely on third person? Well, there are historical answers to those questions, but I realise now that it was actually quite soothing for me to realise that English just is. I don't need to do anything to fix or improve English. It's not my responsibility. It is an organism that leaves and breathes in this world and it doesn't need protecting.

I say this just as much to myself as I say it to the pedants out there, stop correcting people on they, their, there. Who cares if something doesn't follow a standard. It's a typo. Fixing typos is not going to save the world.

I used to be extremely pedantic. I think I was under the delusion that I was making the world a better place by helping to fix these problems. But now I see that I was actually trying to control something. Language can't be controlled. Not in any real sense. Whatever you try to do to it, it will simply adapt.

Many languages have academy's to specify correc usage. Oh my god! I could write a whole piece on that. Learning how to write well is something that definitely can be taught but what is the use in coming up with native terms that no one uses for something like a hashtag. English has 59% Latin or Latin descended vocabulary and it is doing just fine.

Take my advice and try to approach language like a zoologist approaches animals. Look at it like a scientific phenomenon. If you find something, ask yourself "What can I learn from this?" Not "Why are they not saying (insert phrase you are more used to)".

I went a bit off course there but the point I wanted to make was that language doesn't care what you think, and neither does that lion or elephant. Programming is almost the exact opposite. Your thoughts and attitudes are absolutely crucial when it comes to working on a program. It is 99.99% your responsibility when something goes wrong.

Oh, the library broke! Oh, the API stopped working! Java sucks! C++ is poorly designed

There are of course times where those things are true. But it's your job as a programmer to first work out what part you had to play in the creation of the system. The API being the cause of your problems should be the last thing you think of.

I guess I liked programming because I like working on myself. I liked the responsibility that programming gave me. I didn't have to worry about what other people thought. All I had to do was work within the system provided by the computer and I could achieve anything I wanted.

The downside though was that this thinking escaped out into the rest of my life. I became very controlling and was very angry and / or disappointed when things didn't go the way I thought they would.

There is a lot of anger and hate in the world. Everyone has an opinion about something. But a problem is that many people apologise when some it's not really their fault, and other people blame others when it is their fault

I don't often get political but I have noticed something.

I don't identify as a leftist or a conservative or any one label. I feel that people are more complicated than that and I feel that I am more complicated than that, but generally I agree more often with leftist than with people on the right.

But when did the left stop making sound arguments and just attacked people who didn't agree with them. The so-called "basket of deplorables" was a massive own goal by the left. There was no argument there. There was no "This is why you should vote for us". It was solely a "This is why you shouldn't vote for them". Throughout the campaign I mostly heard about why Trump was a terrible guy (I think he is, but that's not the point), and how if he ran the country everything would go to shit and how the right want to destroy everything and on and on.

I don't for one second agree with any of Trump's agendas or goals, but he was very straight forward with people about what he wanted. He promised people a better future. He promised that America would become a better place if they voted for him. There was plenty of delusion in many voters who believed him, but that's not the point.

The hardest lesson for me is that just because you have a good argument doesn't mean you are automatically going to win. The left in America is so fucking high and mighty and holier than thou, in hindsight it's shocking that the vote was as close as it was.

Would you vote for someone who said "You are a terrible person if you support these people" "You are a terrible person if you don't support everything we say"

I support the idea of universal healthcare, lower taxes on the poor and higher taxes on the rich. Unburden people from the enormous weight of healthcare, and let the rich help pay for the infrastructure of the country that has helped them become successful. Give people a reason to support your policies.

Tell them about how we can change lives by implementing universal healthcare. The biggest economy in the world can afford to take care of its weakest members. We can help people who need help. If we can lift them up and give them the help they need, who knows where they can go in life now that they aren't trapped in poverty and health problems.

Tell them how we can invest in infrastructure. We can build new roads, new highways, new internet lines. We can use the tax dollars that come from the people of the country to benefit the people of this country.

The hardest lesson for me is that insulting people who don't believe in something you believe will never change their mind, even if it seems obvious to you. Marriage equality is obvious to me. Freedom of religion is obvious to me. Lots of things are obvious to me. But there are a lot of things that are obvious to other people that aren't obvious to me.

If the left continues to attack those people who don't believe in their policies, it will only strengthen the right. There are a lot of scared people out there. They don't know how to deal with the changes that are happening in society.

I know that its important that we continue to work towards a society where everyone has the potential to succeed. But we aren't there yet.

When leftists say things like "White people are evil" or "White people are everything that is wrong with this country" it makes white people who are don't understand colonialism or the effect that privilege has on them scared. They think to themselves, "I am not evil. Why are these people attacking me?" And they get told by the right that leftists are racist and they just want to control everything. And that is how someone begins to think that the right has their interests at heart.

I have found the best strategy in life is to try to give the other side the benefit of the doubt. I, like many other liberal progressively minded people, were shocked by the election of Trump. But I have tried to understand it. The left lost the election because they weren't able to convince enough people that their way was a better way than that proposed by the other side.

I spent my whole life trying to live up to other people's expectations. They said "Be this!" and "Be that!" and I jumped.

But ultimately those expectations were actually criticisms. "Why aren't you like that?" "Why aren't you like this?" It began to annoy me and as I realised that, Trump's election success made sense. Hillary Clinton and news articles after news article at the time made such a big deal about how bad these people were.

But criticism doesn't affect everyone the same way. If criticism could control the world, then those articles would have given Clinton the election. But they didn't succeed and I didn't suceed in becoming the person I thought the world wanted.

Ironically, once I gave up I actually became more likely, more respected and more successful

If you are not in a place yet where you feel like you are following your own path, I hope you get there some day.

To everyone reading this,
I hope you have a great day :)