Apathetic Much?

Today my lovelies, you're getting some personal insight. I'm sure your thinking, I read your blog all the time, that's personal. Well, it is, true, but this is personal to me, not my thoughts on something else.

I had a meeting with my professor yesterday about an assignment. We met to go over it in person. She made a note about some abrasive behaviors of the person I was interviewing and asked if that was a type of behavior I was used to being directed at me. I was utterly confused, No, I said. People don't generally talk down to me with my approval. I don't let them. She was pleased to hear this and asked my take on it then. Why didn't it bother me that she was worked up and had some superiority in her tone directed at me? Well, my first thought was because it wasn't really directed at me. I was the one in the room, but she would have been talking to whoever asked the questions I asked, no matter who I was.

Then, I decided, it's my trademark thing. I just don't care. I actually said, "It's not that I'm apathetic, but if it's not affecting me personally with malice, there's nothing I can do about it."

So then after fully inquiring on the word apathetic, I've decided that I'm a shade of it. I have some emotion and I do care about some things, but this statement here is dead on, "a (desirable) state of indifference towards events and things which lie outside one's control (that is, according to their philosophy, all things exterior, one being only responsible of his representations and judgments)." If I'm not the responsible party, I just don't care. This was caused by a snap I had in college of deciding I didn't care.

I can still be responsible and be in control of a situation, but I don't need to be. Nor do I really want to be. Control is not something I need. My husband might disagree, but I don't think wanting him to put the powder in the diaper box and moving it from the top shelf every time he doesn't isn't control. It's structure and there is a difference.

In case you didn't know this, I'm a really laid back person. By laid back I mean, deadlines can be a little fuzzy, decisions are only made when necessary, and I'm just fine with an evening at home on the porch swing.

Now, because I'm that way, I do know that I need strict structure when completing tasks. So, for our trip to NY, I had to have everything segmented and organized and ready to go because my natural easy-ness would have made us late, miss flights, trains, etc. That trip was stressful for me because I had to be controlling of every little thing, yet I still only had control of myself and what I was doing. So when the plane was delayed and we had to change our entire itinerary that was stressful. I already had boarding passes, I already had our seats set up to sit together.

And I knew it would be that way because...here's a secret, it doesn't matter how much controlling you do in your world, the outside factors still affect you. Knowing that I used to be a complete control freak, and now see the light, I don't understand the rest of the control freaks in the world. There's no need. All it does is prematurely age you and keep you in an exhaustive state of stress constantly. Why? I assure you, stressing and controlling every aspect of your life doesn't help you accomplish more. It definitely doesn't make the people around you like you any more when you're bossing them around and freaking out about things you can't control. I know, I've been there. Believe me.

But really, if you're a control freak, and deep down, you know if you are, it's ok. Because I really don't care. :)