Heavier Things

Something happened today that abruptly brought me out of the little self perpetuating cycle of my life. Right now my life revolves around school: every waking minute I am either in school, doing school work, or thinking about doing school related work. It never ends. I never get out of it. It's exhausting, and it becomes my entire world. It becomes difficult to think and feel outside of this self-created arena, unless prompted to do so for a class (which only really applies to one course that I'm taking right now).

I forget the perspective of the grand scheme of things when I get into this mode, and it can make it seem like I am Atlas, with the weight of the world balanced upon my shoulders. But in reality, it's only my little self-created world of neurotic worryings and stress. I've been feeling so hunched over, and it only took one uncomfortable moment in Women's Studies class today to bring this back into perspective. It was a physically and mentally disorienting moment, and it just made me realize that I'm over-stressed and over-analyzing and over-worrying about all these little things that really don't matter that much. I always come to these points, of realization and taking a step back, but that never stops me from getting into this self-perpetuating cycle in the first place.

What happened today was this: my women's studies prof choked up today while making an announcement of apology to the class. She had taken some of our writings, put them anonymously on sheets, and handed it out to the class for us to critique on good/bad writing styles. Apparently, some people were upset and complained about having their writing ripped into by the class. So today the prof got up and apologized, and while doing so, broke out into tears. I was so uncomfortable, it felt horrible to be sitting there watching her feel this badly about the situation. I wasn't one of the people who complained, but it was just so shocking to see this normally very aggressive and strong woman tearing up over this.

It's just not something you expect from a prof, and I'm still thinking about my reaction: it really threw me out of my little cycle. This is not what happens in my little arena. So why was I so uncomfortable? Was it just from this abrupt shrugging of my Atlas-world? Would I have reacted the same way if it were a male prof? I don't know. I only know that it has really made me stop and think about how self-involved and oblivious I can get.

Listening to: Take Me Away - Lifehouse

posted by Joanna @ 3:46 PM