The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life

Does Anyone Really Understand You?

Honestly, maybe they don't.  And maybe that's okay.

The truth is, no one else will ever truly know what it is like to be in your shoes. No matter how much they love you. No matter how much you try to explain or get people to see. There is an internal alchemy that happens within each of us that takes all of our experiences, thoughts, feelings, events and life circumstances and cooks them down into our own unique paths and our own philosophies of life.

Belief in a Higher Power aside, where humans are concerned, you are the only one on your path. You are the only one who can go where you are going, ultimately.

Don't let wanting the rest of us to understand (or worse yet, wanting the rest of us to give you permission) deter you from going where you know you need to go. Give us permission not to get it.

Fighting the Good Fight (Part Two): Projection and the Myth of Commonality

As promised in Part One, I'd like to expound a bit on how understanding the concept of psychological project can help you manage and even avoid burnout.

Projection, as the name implies, is essentially the process by which we cast our own internal issues onto those around us, allowing them to reflect back to us something about ourselves that it would behoove us to learn. You may have heard the commonly given example that when someone is making us angry it is likely that they are revealing something to us about ourselves that we don't want to look at. You may or may not have found this to be true for yourself but what does this have to do with burnout?

Fighting the Good Fight without Getting Burned Out

I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

This line by Elvis Costello has saved my head from exploding more than once.  Jacqui posted an interesting dilemma in response to an earlier post that I'd like to comment on here.  It's the age old question for anyone feeling roused to participate in social change, regardless of whether the scope of change you seek is for your community as a whole, your workplace or within the bounds of your own family.

How do you fight the good fight and not burn out?