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Too Many Expectations

After having been pent up with frustration, having feelings of rage and stress continue to build in my being, and with feeling put upon in an extreme manner, I finally broke down and cried and sobbed and released anger and rage in a discussion with my wife. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was utterly inconsequential. My wife commented on how the wireless aspect of her wireless notebook did not function. After a morning of waiting around, guiding my elderly mother through the paces of the morning, my mind was already awash with emotions and the feeling of my needing to perform ANOTHER task, one beyond the seemingly hundreds I performed INSTEAD of going to work threw me over the edge.

I knew I could not talk about it at home as my voice carries far and wide, so I told my wife we were taking a drive and went and parked at a defunct K-Mart parking lot. I began my raging and my ranting and spent the next half hour complaining about everything that has been happening, nearly ranting and pitching a fit. After expending an enourmous amount of energy proclaiming this anger and rage, I eventually broke down into a deep, resonating series of sobs, cries, and wails that lasted another good half and hour until my mind and body were both totally spent. These were not typical sobs, but instead were whole body sobs that kept me from hearing or understanding much around me.

My wife patiently listened and tried to console me as much as she was able, even though there was not really any possibility of my feeling better.

After I was utterly spent emotionally and physically, we drove home, and I ended up going to work for a couple of hours. The washing and airing of my emotions helped to clear my head, yet made me feel horribly guilty. Guilty for laying it all on my wife, guilty at having negative thoughts about my elderly mother, being guilty about my anger.

Yet, I am once again now going to try to struggle back into normalcy. I think I have been placing too great of expectations upon myself... to strive for brilliant research, to strive for award winning teaching, to be a "super" advisor, to "Live Life Large" as I had said earlier. Perhaps given my current life circumstances, I should aim lower. Maybe I should anticipate only struggling to get by with rare occasional chances to grow and develop more.

Perhaps that is the answer?

PipeTobacco