Building the Perfect Beast

"There is no glory in otustripping donkeys." Marcus Valerius Martialis

I wrote a while back about one of my personal and professional afflictions.

Pleaser’s Dilemma

One of the side effects of this affliction is the residual damage caused from the accumulation of weight while lugging all these “stones” around every day. The analogy would be small stones on the back of an ass. Each one is insignificant but there comes a time where the one you pack on breaks the back of the beast.

I had this happen the other day where a seemingly insignificant event sparked a meltdown that took me and, for sure, the people around me totally off guard. One of the problems with being a perpetual nice guy (yes, I really am a nice guy….really. No really) is when the dark side immerses no one really knows what to do with it. Me included.

So, I had myself locked in my cage for a couple of days in order to take everything apart, examine, clean and put back together with some reinforced pieces.

As I stated in Pleaser’s Dilemma I have no interest in changing the beast itself because it’s how I’m wired. See Hard Wired. But I do need to make the beast stronger as well learn to not pack on so many stones.

It’s funny, while locked away and tearing everything apart I was amused with how I knew the meltdown was close and actually made a weak attempt to bail out of the obligation that caused the spark that caused the meltdown. However, had I done that the meltdown would have only been temporarily delayed, not eliminated. Somehow I need to figure out a preventive maintenance program.

So, if you find yourself carrying too many stones, too often and too far and have found an effective way to both strengthen and reduce let me know the program.

In the meantime I’m going to test my new, stronger, reinforced beast by going back to the innocent bystanders that got blistered by my meltdown and offer to carry their stones around for a while.