No mean feat.

Today I'm feeling quite accomplished, because I finally managed to do something that I have great difficulty with, as a general rule: I stuck up for myself. Not with physical violence or anger or anything -- it was just a calm, precise "I'm-not-going-to-do-that-thanks" -- but it seemed like I'd climbed the tallest mountain in all the land.

Despite the fact that I've got a fairly strong personality, I'm a notorious doormat. I think it's a combination of my oldest child/blue/Virgo personality traits -- I want to make other people's lives easier; I want people to need me; I know that we must sometimes do unpleasant things if we're to be considered responsible people.

There's also Ralph Waldo Emerson, who came into the equation late in the game (11th grade -- I blame you, Mrs. Madsen!) but had a pretty intense impact on my social ideology -- especially his essay "Self-Reliance," which contains the following adage: "Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will."

Heavy stuff.

As a fellow transcendentalist, I got what he was saying -- "you've gotta work to be happy" -- but it kind of added this weird layer of self-deprecation to the way I experience... well, discontent. It's like if I feel taken advantage of or abused in any way, this voice in the back of my head goes No, no -- you're not the victim of any wrongdoing, you silly. You've just got an infirm will. Toughen up!

Today I told that voice that I was tired of toughening up, and that it was someone else's turn, and I feel totally liberated from the responsibility of being a good friend/student/person.

For once, I think that can be someone else's problem.