Transcript
Hello and welcome to another DailyJim. Today is Tuesday, February 6, 2024. Today I'm going to talk about probably something quite vulnerable: Which are the relationships that I am most afraid of losing? And maybe also the relationships you might be most afraid of losing. For me, I think a lot of my decisions I've passed through a filter of, will this impact my dad or my sister so much that it breaks our relationship?
And I say that, I'm quite terrified to say that actually on this. But um i think in general i grew up in a family where our where the nuclear family was the most important it's very core and small it's me it was me my dad and my sister and my mom and my mom passed away last year and my sister lives out in la i live with my dad in michigan and i think, I think there's a lot of fear of if I do what I really want to do sometimes, that it may break the relationship. Not because I'm a bad person or there are bad people, just because sometimes we can see things from a very different perspective. And I think most people out there could relate.
And I think about how.
Trying to be grateful for the fear because the fear says to me that I really really care about them and I want them to be well and I want them to be in my life I care about having them in my life and for them to be well kind of the combination, and still understanding what does courage to do that look like Like, do I want to have the courage, you know? And I was reflecting on an ex and how I think she may have been afraid to be with me in some ways because the way that I was living of being more open emotionally and basically being more optimistic and excited about life seemed to clash with the people around her. It's like every time she'd get into a fight with people around her and they would break her heart, she would cut me off and I was so confused. Like why aren't you cutting them off well it's a lot easier to cut off the guy who lives on the other side of the planet than it is to cut off the roommate or the mother or the the best friend or the boy ex-boyfriend um.
And I started thinking about just how many people, how many of us are making these calculations out of fear of losing people we really care about or losing the relationships with these people. Almost like a relationship death or end of interaction.
And think about it, there's, gosh, I mean, think about people coming out of the closet it, whether they're coming out because they're gay or because they're lesbian or transgender or something else, just coming out and stating an opinion and a belief that's quite different than people in their community.
Could be coming out with a religious, new religious belief system, could be coming out with a new political belief. It doesn't even have to be a full system it could just be caring about one thing like this new bill that's passing through the Senate for border protection in the US and going against a party line, just the fear of doing something that's going to alienate us and excommunicate us in a way, and how powerful that fear is in stopping us from doing what we want to do.
And it's a fear. It doesn't mean it'll come true. I think this thing might happen and it might feel bad.
Yeah, just reflecting on how, I think if, yeah, it's, you know, which relationships really matter the most to me. Maybe it's different for each person, you know, maybe some person doesn't care if they lose their relationship with their father, maybe they never had one. But they really don't want to lose the one with their mother, or they don't want to lose the one with their sibling, or they don't want to lose the one with their boss. Or the employer in general, the company that they've worked for for a while, or they don't want to lose a relationship with their church or with their mentor or with their spouse or with their kid or with their political party or with their nation or with their gender or with their... I mean, how many people don't want to come out or are afraid to come out and say something that is loving towards men or women, because there's almost this pact within our groups that say, hey, if you love somebody I hate, then I hate you. Why? Why can't I inspire you to love that person as well?
So, yeah, just sitting here reflecting on that. I went out to the park. It was a sunny day here in Michigan. I was trying to enjoy it. My voice is a little slow. I'm realizing I don't know if it's because the cold weather it's like 40 Fahrenheit outside I don't know if that uh kind of zapped me after being out for about an hour but uh yeah I um.
Yeah I think it's okay to have that fear that our actions might alienate us and break some relationships but maybe the relationships won't be broken forever and And maybe they won't even break.
Who knows?
Wow, I think it's a very powerful motivating factor. I'll just do a side quick tangent on how I think this is one of the main reasons why people aren't voting for the Senate bill on border control and immigration that the Republicans actually put forth. And now they're saying, oh, we don't want to vote on it. It's like, wait, what? Didn't you suggest it? And wasn't there a lot of concessions towards your side? Oh, but if you stand up and say you're for it, there may be a lot of people on your quote unquote team who are now vilifying you and calling you a traitor and maybe threatening to kill you. So it may not even just be the end of the relationship with those people. It may be the end of relationship with the other people you care about because now they're angry. Why did you have to go do that? You should have just kept your head down. So now you might lose a relationship with your spouse or with people who are closer to you. Because they didn't want you to stick your neck out, you know, just keep your head down, you know, what do they say, something like, the nail that's too high gets hammered, there's a lot of phrases about don't stand out too much, yeah, and so I think the fear, can really escalate quickly, as we think, okay, if I get kicked out of this one group, other people in that group who are really close to me may be really upset and kick me out of their group.
But I think it's okay like I said to have this fear because it says we really care about these people and we care about these relationships, and again asking what does it look like to have the courage to go forth anyway, 8 minutes, better than 9 minutes yesterday but uh we'll try to get better each day talk to you tomorrow.
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