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Jul. 7th, 2004 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosebeeNot having a happy good-feelings day...
Below you'll find me making self-observations and talking to myself
Chatting around the lunchroom today, hearing one person talk about the new house they're going to buy and how they're going to turn their existing house into a rental.
So here's me listening to all of this. And all that's going through my mind is how I'm struggling to pay down my credit card bills and worrying about how long it's going to take me to get out of debt, especially now that I've got these car payments. It's going to be years before I can even think about buying a house.
Then the conversation goes slightly to warning the coworker with the soon-to-be rental house not to accept any Section 8 people because they'll trash the house, there's more rules and regulations to follow, and even if you want to kick them out for not paying their rent you can't.
Guess what? My worrying and self-reflection got even worse. Caveat: I'll concede the point that there are more rules and regulations to follow with Section 8.
All I knew about Section 8, until the last few years, was that it was the wonderful program we finally got accepted for when I was a kid that allowed our family to move out of the awful low-income apartment complex we had to move in to when my father walked out. It let us move back to the rental home when lived in before, a nice neighborhood that wasn't a low-income housing project (granted it was fairly new, not like the inner-city 'projects' you hear about, but it was still low-income housing).
When will I learn to stop comparing myself to those around me? When will I learn to stop judging myself based on what others have accomplished, purchased, or otherwise obtained in their lives?
My own life and my own accomplishements are the only things I should compare to or judge myself on, nothing else.
And of course all of this is coming on a day when I'm feeling particularly slow and stupid because I'm not remembering or picking up all the intricacies of my new job (it's one I did before, but it's been a couple of years since then, and even when it was something I did on a regular basis I didn't have a super-solid foundation, and I also didn't do it the same way they do here.
Below you'll find me making self-observations and talking to myself
Chatting around the lunchroom today, hearing one person talk about the new house they're going to buy and how they're going to turn their existing house into a rental.
So here's me listening to all of this. And all that's going through my mind is how I'm struggling to pay down my credit card bills and worrying about how long it's going to take me to get out of debt, especially now that I've got these car payments. It's going to be years before I can even think about buying a house.
Then the conversation goes slightly to warning the coworker with the soon-to-be rental house not to accept any Section 8 people because they'll trash the house, there's more rules and regulations to follow, and even if you want to kick them out for not paying their rent you can't.
Guess what? My worrying and self-reflection got even worse. Caveat: I'll concede the point that there are more rules and regulations to follow with Section 8.
All I knew about Section 8, until the last few years, was that it was the wonderful program we finally got accepted for when I was a kid that allowed our family to move out of the awful low-income apartment complex we had to move in to when my father walked out. It let us move back to the rental home when lived in before, a nice neighborhood that wasn't a low-income housing project (granted it was fairly new, not like the inner-city 'projects' you hear about, but it was still low-income housing).
When will I learn to stop comparing myself to those around me? When will I learn to stop judging myself based on what others have accomplished, purchased, or otherwise obtained in their lives?
My own life and my own accomplishements are the only things I should compare to or judge myself on, nothing else.
And of course all of this is coming on a day when I'm feeling particularly slow and stupid because I'm not remembering or picking up all the intricacies of my new job (it's one I did before, but it's been a couple of years since then, and even when it was something I did on a regular basis I didn't have a super-solid foundation, and I also didn't do it the same way they do here.
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Date: 2004-07-07 02:07 pm (UTC)You are a wonderful, successful person, regardless of the relative successes of others, their prejudices, and their inability to see beyond a stereotype.
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Date: 2004-07-07 06:45 pm (UTC)Work's over, and it was an accomplishment-filled day so it ended on a relatively high note for me.
Time to get some food and relax. :)
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Date: 2004-07-07 04:57 pm (UTC)A lot of people who have had it easier and are financially stable really don't see the other side of the equation -- just like people who have never dealt with depression don't get that it's not "have a good cry and you'll feel better" or people who haven't deal with losing someone think that grief has a timeline. It's pretty hard in general to "get" things you have no experience with, I guess.
I think you are pretty amazing. I'm just saying.
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Date: 2004-07-07 06:42 pm (UTC)Thanks, I needed to hear that!
Funny how a lot of things in life always seem to be easier said than done, huh?
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Date: 2004-07-07 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 05:37 pm (UTC)No, I'm afraid not. By the time I got over my shock at what they said (& how they said it), the conversation had moved on to something else and I didn't really want to bring it up again. Though part of me kind of wanted to say something to them.
At least at the end of that part of the conversation someone commented that not all people on section 8 would act like that but that it's typically not the case. I would've argued that the thing about your house getting trashed is the case with *any* renter, whether they're on section 8 or not.