Have you ever listened to David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech titled This Is Water? It is one of my favorite speeches, given by a man who had several demons of his own.
The main theme of the message is that higher education should teach us how to pay attention to the world around us, how to seriously consider, think, and decide how we want to perceive life, people, and situations. It expands on the idea that our “default setting” has us in the center of our world, where every single thing in reality is happening to us. That our default setting has our wants, needs, and desires as the most fundamental, central, necessary parts of our existence and our perception of the world. But, we have a choice- we can choose to approach the world with compassion, curiosity, and meaning making.
Well, I don’t know when my default setting ramped up again but I’m here to share that I’m deep into my default setting: the world revolves around me.
Not in the way where I’m mad that I have to wait in line at the coffee shop in the morning. Rather, in a way where I assume I am the center of the problem, the center of other people’s problems, and the main character that is acting upon or being acted upon in any situation.
Let me explain.
This thought of, “What the hell am I thinking? This isn’t about you, Marisa!” has come up several times in the past year. Situations unfold and I somehow assume they are about me when they just aren’t. They are about other people and their lives. Plain and simple.
Some, if not all, of this immediate assumption is related to having too much time on my hands, automatic overthinking or spiraling, and certainly the slow and steady increase in my anxiety.
I don’t remember having impulsive thoughts of “it must be me” or “I’m wrong” or “they are mad at me” in the past. But boy do I now!
These immediate thoughts are not only inaccurate and thus unhelpful, but they really twist reality and make nothing into my something and other people’s somethings into nothing.
How rude of me. Each time a situation like this happens I want to crawl in a hole.
How could I be so unaware? How could I assume the worst? How could I put myself, once again, as the central character in their story. Who do I think I am?
Let me give you 3 examples that have all happened in the past year.
I’ll start with an easy example. Something that I think happens to a lot of us. The cliched “Are they mad at me?”
Girls are friends. Girls don’t see each other in a month. Each girl wonders if the other is mad at them, even though each girl has been unbelievably busy with their own life. Girl texts other girl, “Hey let’s catch up!” Other girl texts girl, “I was just about to message you! Sorry, I have been so busy I haven’t been able to reach out.” They both realize that they aren’t the problem, each girl hasn’t even thought of the other in a month, they both miss each other, they catch up and remember how much they love each other and life goes on. End of story.
How often I automatically wonder if a friend feels some sort of way about me because of them not responding for a few days. This scenario doesn’t happen quite so frequently now as it did maybe when I was, say, 25, but given the right person and the right length of time without conversing and the perfectly aligned anxious day and I can convince myself that my own mother hates me. [kidding, mom:)]
Hell, this happens at work too. I’ll message a coworker or a specialist with a question and they won’t respond by some made up time that I’ve set and I just spiral wondering, “Was my question stupid? Do they think I’m an idiot?”
I just don’t remember being so insecure, but mostly so self centered!
People have other f*cking things to do! THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND ME.
I’m hyperbolizing a bit, you know. I’m not just a frantic ball of “every person literally and surely hates me.” But I’m definitely injecting myself into people’s stories when I’m not a main character in the story and usually not even a supporting cast member.
People. Are. Not. Thinking. About. Me.
A more harrowing example?
My best friend and I went out for dinner and drinks one night. We arrived at the restaurant, and it was packed so we opted to skip dinner and just get drinks across the way at a cute bar. How mature of us. We sat down and chit-chatted for a few minutes while perusing the menus. We ordered our drinks and there was just a palpable vibe that felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I could tell my friend was feeling sad? Mad? Mad at me?? My mind started spinning.
She finally said, “Marisa, I have something I need to talk to you about.” There it is! I knew it!
I immediately blurted out, “OMG do you hate me? Did I do something wrong??”
Confusion furrowed on her brow. “What? No. My dad has cancer.”
Oof. Just oof.
How could I be so annoying and insane and overbearing and anxious that I actually thought my best friend was suddenly going to break up with me? When in reality, she not only was not going to do that, but she was trying to divulge some of the most heartbreaking and sorrowing news of our friendship to date.
Guilt, annoyance, sadness slapped me in the face.
I can’t believe I brought myself into a story that wasn’t mine. Did it change anything about our friendship, conversation, or following months of support after? No. But it just isn’t the default setting I want to lean into.
The final, and most immediate example occurred just last week. Fun!
If you remember, I am dipping my toes into the proverbial research waters, at work. Long story short but there are 5 of us on the team, 3 holding PhD’s, one being a research assistant, and me tagging along. We are researching what will end up being either a scoping or systematic review of several other studies. We are currently in the process of sifting through thousands of articles, reading their abstracts, and voting if they are relevant or not. Each article has to have 2 people in agreement on its relevance before it can move to the second round. And if 2 people disagree on the relevancy, it goes into a pool in need of reconciliation. Well, there are 70 articles in the reconciliation pool and what do you know, but I am the common denominator of all 70! I am clearly missing something because myself and 4 Very Important And Knowledgeable Researchers are not agreeing on article relevancy. I felt like an idiot, a fraud, a burden, a mess up, all the negative self talk just rushed in. Mostly, I just felt embarrassed that everyone could see how incompetent I was. I turned to my husband when this reality set in and was like, “Ok, I’m clearly missing the point of it all. Something is not clicking if 50% of my votes are incorrect.”
Just my luck, we had a group meeting the next day. Ya’ll I was sweating. I felt insecure about my decisions, confused about how I clearly missed a major point in our research question that we have been talking about for 6 months, and sad that I felt like I was letting myself and my team down. I know, I know. These feel like such big emotions for a relatively small situation (that hasn’t even been sifted through yet with the team) but it was my reality. Remember, this research is important to me. This team is taking a chance on me. I probably shouldn’t even be in this room but they are letting me out of the goodness of their heart. I want to provide value, perspective, and do this dang thing well! I couldn’t wait to clarify what I was missing and talk through my confusion with the group.
We all sat down and the lead researcher began, “So guys, I’m feeling a little insecure with my decisions and am getting confused with what our research question is. It feels like we need to clarify a few things.” Every other team member echoed in agreement. One stating, “I was looking through these articles and just ended up putting a lot of ‘maybe’ votes because I wasn’t really sure.” Another adding, “I don’t feel like we clarified our research question enough.” And finally my small voice chimed in, “Whew, I thought it was just me.”
To hear everyone else felt the exact same way I did was relieving, validating, and encouraging. But to have just automatically assumed I was the problem is, quite frankly, sad… but also annoyingly self centered!
Even as I take myself out of situations and can calmly rationalize the above 3 scenarios in some way, I still hate that as of late, my all too immediate and default response is that I am the center of the story.
Surely this whole zoom call will be focused on me and how I’m not understanding the assignment.
Surely this whole friend dinner will be about how I’ve been absent.
Surely when that person said that thing they were insinuating it about me.
Surely I’m top of mind to everyone around me.
After all, I’m clearly top of mind to myself!
I think these examples put my self centeredness so acutely into focus that I was taken aback in the moment, more so than I have ever been. This essay was inspired by my research zoom call as described above. I was spiraling to my husband for a full 24 hours, knowing surely that I was a Grade A Mess Up and I was startled when the reality was so entirely opposite of the scenario in my head. My absolute sureness was just so wrong. It wasn’t even in the same ballpark.
I’m not sure I even have a lesson for you in this essay, other than 99.9% of scenarios do not have you at the center of it… even though 99.9% of scenarios in our head do have us at the center.
So, I’m working on getting out of my head and not just thinking through the rational more likely scenario, but actually believing it, meditating on it, and truly living it.
I think this is what therapists call The Wise Mind. The wise mind is the perfect sweet spot between the rational mind and the emotional mind. Acknowledging both the facts of a situation with the emotions attached to it. The wise mind breeds clarity, intuition, and balance.
It allows for validating feelings while also leaving space for logical analysis- marrying the two to create a really nice sweet spot that is probably the closest picture to “reality” our mind can get to.
We get to decide how we approach situations, what we find meaning in, and what we emphasize or bring to the surface. We get to decide what our own reality is.
For a while now, my reality has been a little too tightly wound into emotion or anxiety. Not in an overpowering way, but in a way that is bothersome, and in the above few scenarios just down right heartbreaking. My reality is getting in my own way.
Here’s to working on hearing my wise mind, and listening to it.
Here’s to working on getting out of stories that aren’t mine.
Here’s to remembering that our view of the world, of a situation, of a person is simply just one view of that scenario. And it’s important to stay open to and curious about the other possibilities.
Here’s to remembering that I have a choice when deciding what I believe about the world and the people in it.
I know all of this. You probably know all of this too.
But here’s my promise to better act on it.
As always, I’m rooting for you.
Until next time,
xoxo
Marisa
1. I finished Fourth Wing and started Iron Flame.
2. I finished Selling Sunset season 8 and starting Selling The City. As New York City’s biggest fan, I have to say Selling The City is just incredible. The real estate and properties they show are out of this world.
3. Piper got spayed and was a “model patient” per the vet:’)
4. We got two “snow days” at work for rain. RAIN. It was magical. Best part of living in Texas for sure.
5. My friend asked me to give her lunch recs and I haven’t shared my favorite recipe in a hot minute so here it is.
6. Watershed was recommended to me to watch- I haven’t seen it but I’m a sucker for any sport movie.
Thank you for being here. Your readership, encouragement, and curiosity mean more than you know.