(no subject)

[wispfox]

"Do, or do not. There is no try".

Saying that you will 'try' to do something is dangerous, because it leaves room for thinking about why you shouldn't or can't do it, why it's scary, or why it won't work. Too often, saying you will try to do something means you _won't_, because you will talk yourself out of it, or be too afraid to ever actually do it.

I speak from experience here. Things which are scary, for whatever reason, from possibly not have a good result, to possibly (or certainly!) hurting someone else, are hard enough to do _without_ all sorts of reasons why you shouldn't. Or can't. Or ought not to.

If there is something that needs to happen, if it keeps coming up in your head, don't tell yourself you'll try, or that you'll only bring it up if it looks like it'll be useful. Say you will do it (and preferably _when_), and _do it_, and stop thinking about why it won't, can't, shouldn't happen. Why it's scary, or why you don't want to do it.

If it needs to happen so badly that you can't stop thinking about it, _stop delaying_ - delays make difficult things more difficult, and easier to postpone for 'a better time'. If it's that difficult to do or say, there won't _be_ a good time. And waiting will only make it worse, for everyone involved.

Believe me, I know how difficult it can be to speak up about things. That is one of the major things I've been trying to rewire in myself for most of my life. But it _does_ get easier. You start to find out that things can't get as bad if you don't let them fester, that difficult things cause less pain if you don't let them sit, that the people who truly belong in your life will not freak out about things you might need to say anywhere nearly as often as you might fear they will, and sometimes whatever it was you were worried about is not a difficult thing at all, once stated.

Keeping things inside yourself is not only bad for _you_, but a disservice to whomever else is involved. It's not possible to make good decisions if you don't know all the facts, and it feels like a betrayal when something is kept from you 'for your own good'. Or because the person was afraid to speak up. Especially if you happen to be one where you can tell something important isn't being said.

I know this from both sides - from the person who was afraid to speak up, and from the person who was missing important pieces of information.

Speak up. Do what needs to be done. Listen to your discomfort.

(note: Yes, there are cases where trying is enough - but even those cases, I tend to think of as 'do, and learn from failure', rather than 'trying'... ie, I rarely say I will 'try', but that I will 'do what I can'. I've been doing my best to remove the word 'try' from my vocabulary for a while now. And I _know_ I have not succeeded, yet.)

[edit: This post is intended to be about the processing that happens in my head before doing or saying something that needs to be said or done.]

Comments

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I don't know that this is necessarily generalizable to the word in general usage, across people, though.

*nods* Indeed - I don't always remember, but everything I put in my journal is things relating to _me_. If they happen to apply to other people, then great!

"Do what I can," implies a finality

Note: another thing about my journal. Much of what I write is still in process. I knew when I wrote it that it wasn't completely... finished. It was more relating to social things than work ones.

There are _lots_ of situations where what I wrote cannot be true - one of the examples you used being at work.

I don't have a problem with being afraid of doing/saying things at work, so, for me, the thing I was trying to address with the post completely did not apply. However, I think that I _still_ don't use the word 'try' at work. Not sure. Not as fully aware in that case.