Half Assing The Living - Thinking It's Cool to be "Half Assed"
I'm sure you've participated in a moment in your lifetime where your participation was "half assed". Where you really didn't 100% commit yourself to participating in the moment. You were here but not really because a whilrwind of other things were being held onto in the background...kind of present but not realy....kind of like being a 'useless tit' to an extent because there's a sort of lethargic apathy about the willingness to move. It's a kind of depression of sorts.
I realized this has been a defense and offense system of mine. It's been a conditioned form of behavior and play out as a way for me to survive my environment of confrontation and imposed limitations. The survival in and of itself is "half assed" because it's not an expansionary survival of sorts - no it's more of a minimalist....even nihilistic approach. There's a reluctance and even a suppression. Like there being an absense of strong vitality coursing/pulsing through the veins.
It's like a shutdown and closed off experience.
It's a stagnation of sorts....where you've become like this pond. This pond has potential. Lots of potential. but the pond must be considered in regards to the rest of it's immediate environment. If adequate care and regard is not given to the pond in terms of it's best needs - well the results may very well be fruitless and futile...because it's like resisting to plug into the pond a practical channel and direction to practically source and hold support effectively and efficiently. From here it's a matter of regard in terms of how to best share support as a harmony in 'give and recieve'....not 'giving to get'...but a giving to give....a living to give as the embodiment of what it means to be the best care taking custodian onto ourselves.
Growing up I was a competitive hockey player - playing all the way up into the university levels. I noticed an interesting thing as I progressed - where it became "cool to not give a shit"....to kind of do things in a "half assed way". Now keep in mind that each and every player from childhood is going through these processes of self-identity relative to making sense of our external environment. For me - there seemed to be power in breaking the rules and by not giving a shit about things that other people cared for. For me in some weird way - Caring became a kind of weakness within me. Where I was fuelling this rebellious nature of "I don't care - i'm wild and crazy"...This tied into "winning at all costs and being a champion athlete and competitor".
I was make believing "not caring" into a perceived strength.
Ironically this male bravado and super ego dominance was a perpetuation of my undevelopped 'self-care' and 'self-regard'. For me at the time - it was like me fighting to fit in while having all these childhood trauma's unprocessed....the hockey became an outlet for all of my energetic suppressions....a way for me to physically act out the violence within my internal existence.
The fucked up thing of sorts - is that my misbehavior in terms of basic human decency was celebrated and regarded by my peers. Where I would often be regarded and complimented for my self-compromise and self-sacrifice....the very sacrificing of me for the game...the sport...the win - was seen as both honorable and noble. So - even if lets say i did something really nasty to someone on the other team - it was quickly validated as necessary and ok by my teammates because it was seen as my solidarity in fighting for and protecting my teammates. Never once did I consider that my actions were a form of compensation I created as a way for me to fit in and garner attention.
A sort of acting out to make myself feel worthy...a consequence of a deep dark pit of despair that i hadn't even the vocabulary to make sense of the math....the math of me....as what i'd been experience....accepting and allowing myself to believe who I am.
The interesting thing is that to me - hockey was everything - hockey is life - i was so closed off in terms of everything else and it's like the organized and officiated games became like the big thing for me....my chance to shine....my chance to chalk up some points...some positive statistics that i could use to glorify myself within.
In the towns/cities I grew up within - The coolest dudes played hockey - and so by being a hockey player - you were basically king shit. It's not necessairly that the coolest dudes played hockey....that was merely my perception...and i projected that extensively so - bootstrapping self-worthiness to the primary activities in which you participate.
And so in my mind - I had an elevated status and opinion of myself because Hockey was more valuable in my mind to pretty much everything else in existence.
Never once did I really stop to ask myself - what the hell am I doing?
How come I am making such a big obsession about "Hockey is Life"?
How come my sense of self-woth and regard for others correlates to whether or not they are interested in hockey?
How come I want self-approval and validation from my peers?
How come it's so important to me to be the 'captain' or the 'assistant captain'?
How come I so badly want to get the letter of the "C" or the "A" added onto my jersey?
The Half Assing point has some benefits. The benefit being to see what I could get away with. Though - in really looking at myself and my life - I never really benefitted by being half assed about anything. In fact it perpetuated self-agony and self-loathing of sorts. I never once saw it like that. Yet i perpetuated that dichotomy so many times. I always thought I was winning within my half assed approach - because i was making an effort - yet very limited...and so with my minimal effort...my thinking was always - if anything emerges from this limitted effort than I've kind of hit the jackpot....because i didn't really invest very much of myself....i didn't even really "try"...i just took a very small position without really expecting any kind of return.
What I am seeing within the half-assed approach is there's always been a form of helplessness. Where it's like I'm here and the odds are against me so the chances of things working out in my favor are slim...i probably won't get things the way i want them to be - so - take what you can get. See what you can get. Give as little as possible in order to see what you can get.
Massive focus on getting.
Kind of making the getting into a form of lack and so never really cultivating what i got - just kind of moving on to the next thing to get. Always looking for the 'best deals'....the best hustles.....where I could get more than my share for less than my share.
In a lot of ways this story of my life within a dynamic of "Half Assing"
Is like only ever makining small plays and investments into myself. Where it's like the care taking and accommodations I create for myself are always somewhat lacking - it becoming a burden of sorts to actually give a shit about the best of Me.
Ironically as i moved through my teens and into my twenties - the tendency again within "half-assing" was to drop relationships left, right and center. Taking on the approach and view point that they were all shit. That I wanted new ones. I wanted a fresh start. Experiencing myself as massively overwhelmed and compounded within my relationships which were mostly lackluster cycling's through the motions.
The real kicker and irony here:
I never really stopped to check myself. I mean i was always justifying and excusing the internal experiences within myself as valid depictions "making sense" of my external reality. Never really questioning my own 'self-righteousness'. Never really questioning the very nature of my half-assing approaches.....never really questioning my judgements and projections.
Making my Bullshit all too real - by half assing the questions I ask myself - for myself.
Forgiveness
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for resisting to ask myself: How am I half assing my best potential....How can I best exercise my potential?
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be be resistant about talking about myself in any kind of way that shows vulverability and or could be perceived by some as weakness.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a lifestyle of compensation for the undercurrents of my negative emotional discomforts because I've been reluctant to actually looking at these things because I've been concerned that I will make things worse for myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist within the frame of mind, "nothing to lose and everything to gain". I realize I never really considered myself wholly here within this approach - it's kind of like I accepted a sort of worthlessness of myself while masquerading a sort of superior mentality - thus making myself able to tolerate a lot of pain/punishment/abuse/suffering/sorrow/sadness/dispair.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse myself and others within sport.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define the quality of a being's life relative to their envolvment and participation within Sport.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for not realizing and understanding what it means to commit to myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for essentially always being on the run from myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for not realizing and understanding what it means to be whole body here.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think it's cool to "half ass" participations and efforts.
Commitment / Change / Solution
I commit myself to stop myself from participating in patterns of "half-assing". I realize there exists an opportunity for me to correct these inferior acceptances and allowances when and as I see myself reacting and going into the experience of not being 100%. I stop and breathe - i catch the pattern and I ground myself in my stability and awareness. I realize the dynamics of the pattern at play. I realize How to identify the specifics of the energy at play within myself. I source the point with a word - By doing this I am able to harmonize the weakness and instability within myself and transform the point into a strength.
I commit myself to transforming character weakenesses into strengths.
I commit myself to sharing the process of transformation - from weakness to strength.
I commit myself to developping a real maturity in what it means to participate 100% in my moments.
Special Shouts Out to: