Today I woke up and remembered something that I had forgotten quite some time back. There was a time where I would put a new keyboard together before I started work. At that time, I think I was going through many things mentally, and this past week, I felt some of that old anxiety creeping back in. Building a keyboard everyday for myself was a real way for me to deal with that anxiety, by having something I could control, and it would distract me for at least half an hour before I would start my work.
Assembling a keyboard daily isn’t a task that everyone could do, or afford to do. In hindsight, I know that what I was doing was something almost completely unnecessary, and there were probably a million other ways for me to destress and get ready for the day. It was just that at that time, keyboard building was the sweet spot for me. I was also filming so much of my keyboard builds, and I think I really enjoyed the processes of making all that happen. It provided this means of escape, if just a little.
The deeper question to ask is about the anxiety I face. A lot of it had to do with the lack of control, despite being tasked to do something. I think I’ve transferred that action sometimes to my wife, by asking her to do something, but then completely limiting her on how to do it. It has to be done how I want it to be done. While sounding completely stupid, it makes sense sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. Like how to fry and egg. Or how to wipe a table down. It’s pretty dumb then, but I can get really picky and annoying about things like that.
But when it’s something a bit more vague and ambiguous, like to achieve a goal, or to perform in a certain way, there’s a lot of ways to get something done. When there are many ways to get something done, the buy in from everyone else needs to be there. And sometimes, in getting the buy in, compromises have to be made. But what gave me the most anxiety is when my work of hitting a specific goal, was tasked to me almost to the dot, and that gave me a lot of pressure, because I simply wasn’t being me.
Thankfully, my current work now embraces me as a person, and incorporates who I am into the workflow. It allows for the company to grow, and for me to also learn more comfortably about other people. But the anxiety that I felt was triggered a lot from the past, and I am glad to be reminded that I don’t have to work that way anymore.
In all this learning, I think the key point is to really let my wife do her own thing. 🙂