I Thought I Had Become Passive
But I had simply become more self-aware.
A few weeks ago, it felt like I was looking at a different person in the mirror. I was not acting the way I used to before.
I had heavy workweeks. Focusing on my Ph.D. project took more than the supposed 40 hours of work per week —not surprisingly. On top of it, the doctoral classes required around 20 additional hours each week. After a few weeks, I was close to burnout. Yet little by little, I stopped complaining and started to prioritize better. I got rid of unessential tasks, and most of all, got things done without “whining”.
In fact, as weeks went by facing this time-consuming and demanding situation, I came to the conclusion that I was completely passive. On Friday nights, I indifferently mumbled, “who cares that it’s the weekend, it will be the same as weekdays anyway”.
Then I began to convince myself that I was being passive in literally everything in my life.
When a colleague did a presentation and “forgot” to mention me for the work I did, I thought “who cares, I don’t need no recognition for the work I do. I’m not here to brag.” And again, I told myself, “wow, I really am passive in every situation. A few months ago, it would have made me so angry”.
The other day, a friend forgot to add me to a WhatsApp group to plan for another friend’s birthday present. They were twenty in that group, yet they forgot to add me, partly because I moved and no longer live in the same city. It surprised me at first, but I thought, “it’s not important, I can’t lose time worrying about this.” If it had happened a few months before, it would have bothered me for days, wondering “did I do something wrong?”
When I lost part of the money I had invested in shares, it felt disappointing at first. Yet instead of being on edge for days, I quickly came to think, “it’s just money, I don’t care”.
Wallowing in passivity felt good
I don’t know why, but it actually made me feel good to tell myself over and over that I was being passive anyway. That way, nothing seemed to be a big deal. I convinced myself that I didn’t care about petty worries and that I was simply living on autopilot.
I guess I enjoyed being able to hide behind a lame excuse. It served as some sort of persona of myself, helping me cope with the internal change I saw coming. Whenever something bothered me, I joked about it saying, “passive mode activated” and it wouldn’t be a problem anymore.
However, while I thought I was passively facing what life had in store, I still kept moving towards my personal goals and projects. In fact, I had lost less time watching series and scrolling down on social media in the last few weeks and devoted most of my free time learning about extra topics, reading, writing, exercising.
So it suddenly hit me.
What if it was anything but passivity?
I spent some time thinking about it. Would a passive person still find time to work on their personal projects? Would they still fight for their values?
A slightly younger version of myself would have become saddened if her friends forgot her for something and would have been irritated for days if a colleague had taken credit for her work. Besides, she would surely have become excessively anxious if she had had that much work to handle for several weeks in a row. The examples could go on and on.
In short, my younger-self used to have emotionally intense reactions to what happened around her and tended toward letting the surroundings control her emotions.
On the contrary, my current-self was so busy with everything that was going on that I had no time to complain, let alone lose time on energy-consuming reactions. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t react at all, I was simply acting calmer and being more self-aware.
It made me realize how much time I used to lose before completing a boring work task, postponing it over and over. When you can’t lose time, you have no other option than to be more productive.
As for the rest, I simply told myself they were petty worries that I could not solve on the spot. Why worry about things you can’t control at the moment? When I finally had my friends on the phone, I told them how it had made me feel and they understood. Regarding my colleague’s attitude, I assumed she didn’t do it on purpose for this one time but knew I would talk to her privately if it happened again. The thing is, I didn’t let anything bother me more than what was needed until I had the opportunity to solve it.
There is a saying of an unknown author that sums it up well,
“If you try to control everything, and then worry about the things you can’t control, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of frustration and misery.”
Final thoughts
Maybe I was actually being passive until I took some time to reflect on it, who knows. But looking back, it all makes sense. I thought I had lost my passion and motivation to face life’s challenges and it clearly disappointed me, hence the passive persona. But in reality, I still am the same passionate and motivated person I was, I just became more self-aware.
As Dale Carnegie put it in his book How to stop worrying and start living, “I am too busy. I have no time for worry.” When you focus on making things done, you don’t have that much time left for the usual petty worries. You’ll deal with them when the time comes. I just hope I’ll still have that state of mind when I’ll have more free time.
Keep your energy for solving problems rather than spending too much time worrying about them.
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” — Henry Ford
