For many, being positive is a way of life. They try not to take failure too hard, always look ahead and are quite good in the self confidence aspect. Often it works out that such people seem to breeze through life.
For others, there is often an internal struggle. There are grey lines and ebbs and flows. There is an evolving dialogue that sometimes smiles and sometimes cries. Life is not something they breeze through, but painstakingly tackle as best as they can.
The first camp is all about how their positivity brings them success. They talk about a few instances of adversity and how they overcame it with their attitude.
The second camp tends to have a bigger share of adversity and also take it more seriously than the first. They have a lot of wisdom and scars from their experiences.
Now coming to myself and where I stand. From my past posts, its probably apparent that I belong to the second camp, and aspire to be in the first camp - but I'm also not entirely sure if that's what I want. I guess I want parts of it but not all.
The part that I am struggling with today is over-sensitivity. The situation where an interaction remains in my mind, I replay it and get affected by it too much. This current one stems from an issue at work. I want to let it go but it's bothering me.
A colleague took advantage of me and instead of asking for my help, tried to pass off work to me as if it was my responsibility to begin with, which it wasn't. He got aggressive and I held firm in my boundaries. He went to the manager and I had done so as well. The manager asked him to do it but gave me "advice" to "get out of my comfort zone". I didn't like that, since he was getting a free pass and I was looking like the bad guy. He told me we both had to figure out a way to work together. I had to read between the lines and extend the olive branch to do the work after all with this colleague. He did not reciprocate and told me he's "busy until the end of the month" - too busy to accept my help which I know he is going to pass off again as my work. Anyway, my manager brought this up in my annual performance review, since of course, this had to happen the same week. I hate it. Absolutely do not like such toxic work environment and I want to shake it off. I think they are going to use it against me. I need to get out of here and why does this always happen? I am upset. It absolutely sucks. And I am not sure if I will ever get out of this career slump. There that's all said and now I will try to plan my next steps. But I wonder, if others deal with similar and just shake it off? Or are they more aggressive and they do not care about the repercussions? Mostly, I think it goes back to my leveling - since I am "junior" and a woman, people think it's a license to abuse me. I often think that I would make for a very empathetic manager, but maybe I'm too much of a realist and not enough of a "drink the koolaid" person to be made one.
The other part is my health anxiety. I am worried that every time something happens at work that is negative and I speak up or even vent, that the karma or whatever I am putting out is bad. It is an awful feeling. I feel like I should have just been a doormat and accepted the work quietly. And then feel guilty, ungrateful, and wonder if I have the right perspective.
This whole thing happened just before a vacation and I have other anxieties related to family and health and it's all just blowing out of proportion in my mind. I can't really look forward to the vacation with all of this in so much flux.
Now getting to the kids and husband. They are really the most important in all of this and they are not taking enough headspace in my happiness. Kids are absorbing every little thing around them, and I want to be that positive force around them. I am trying and I hope I can focus on them and enjoying them more.
Anyway, I am going to try my best because what else can I do. Thank you for reading.
Edit: After writing this all out and sleeping on it, I am trying to convince myself of the following:
1. With kids I am probably doing a better job than I am. I told my husband that I see myself as a ball of anxiety and stress. He says he doesn't see that. That the only thing that comes out on those aspects is an over-sensitivity at times, and that the anxiety actually helps our family because it is to the extent that we try to make healthy choices for our family.
2. All is not lost on the work front. The review was not the formal review. If I make a good impression before that then other stuff is forgotten. Sometimes people are so busy they tend to have short term memory and my issues are not on their radar at all, definitely not to the importance that I am giving them. Also opinions about how I performed were formed already, and they are not stupid, they can judge for themselves. I have to give them credit for that. He also told me he "has great things planned for me" and I believe him on that, so I think we all agree that I have potential. I've played this corporate speak thing for years, it's part of navigating my career, I have to dust off and keep moving.
3. Vacation - let's focus on that, try to have a change of scene and give ourselves and kiddos and family a bit of a respite. Looking forward to that.
