Age-Old Poultry Query

Dear Orchid,

You know those movies that start at the end and then spend the rest of their runtime showing how prior events unfolded to reach that conclusion? That’s how this one is gonna go.

My most current extrapolation: I cannot set boundaries for myself, and as a result, I rarely say “no” to things others ask of me.

Or, is it that I have said yes so much that I cannot seem to extricate myself from the expectations of others, and the fear of disappointing them makes me incapable of setting boundaries?

See, this is gonna be one of those art-house films, with a million interpretations.

Let’s Add Some Context

I have always held terribly high standards, for myself and those around me. Anyone who has ever worked on a group project with me, spent time as my supervisee, or hell, been married to me, knows that I’m a consistently demanding creature. This characteristic is both the key to my success and the path to my inevitable burnout.

(Dear reader, if you’re wondering: I’m an Enneagram 1 + an INTJ turned INFJ.)

I believe all kids are born with some innate personality traits. I was always awfully serious and seemingly older than my years. My mom’s joked that I was approximately five years old at the moment of my birth. Some things are just built in. I’ve always expected more of myself than anyone else did, though I’m sure my parents’ standards, as I perceived them, fed into my drive to meet and exceed. This brings us to the age-old poultry query.

Chicken vs. Egg

Which do you think is true: experience leads to expectations, or expectations precede experience? As in, did I start as Little Miss Responsible, and now others simply rely on this tendency, or did others expect me to be highly dependable, and therefore treated me as such?

Although it doesn’t answer all questions, Alfred Adler’s birth order theory offers some interesting tidbits. I was an only child until the age of nine, when I became the oldest. Only children seem more mature, tending toward perfectionism and conscientiousness — they carry the weight of all their parents’ attention and expectations, without anyone else to dilute the burden.

Oldest children combine their original only-child qualities with the shake-up of adding another child to the household: parents’ attention is now divided and they have higher expectations of the oldest, which results in increased responsibility and the need to set an example. Mix it all together, and you get a reliable, controlling high-achiever with a fear of failure. Okay, that doesn’t necessarily describe all oldest children, but it surely encompasses me.

Where Does This Bring Us?

Now, even Adler agrees that it’s not all about birth order. There are also socio-economic, cultural, and other factors that affect one’s personality. Which leads me to the inevitable, the Jewish-refugee-from-the-former-Soviet-Union je ne sais quoi of it all. Here are some helpful stereotypes to flesh out the details: rumor has it, we value education, achievement, familial duty, and tradition (cue some Fiddler on the Roof, per one of my prior writings). In varying degrees, my family, myself included, very much embodies the above.

In this exact moment, I think back fondly to my beloved, childhood Capricorn mug, with all of these lovely notes about my Zodiac sign’s ruling planet, preferred colors, and prominent traits — fatalistic, being one of the latter. Was it all predetermined, from the so-called get-go? Take cultural background, add certain family dynamics, stir in some inevitable struggle, and viola! You’ll get one of these dutiful, overly responsible humans who invariably do more than they can and think they can never do enough.

Alright, Let’s Tone Down The Drama

Every day, you get to make new choices. If you know what you do, and you can make an educated guess about why you do it, you can then begin the slow, meandering journey to change. But only if you want to.

My realization about my lack of boundaries is the first step to establishing them one day, when I scrape together the courage and scale my towering mountain of personal expectations. Ultimately, all things come to a head when there’s nothing to do but try something different, because repeating the past is glaringly ineffective and hurtful.

As the TikTok-famous phrase goes, “For three easy payments of doing the damn work, you can get exactly what you want.”

Love,

Aster

P.S. So, we’ve now had over 100 days of war in Ukraine. Horror has become commonplace and atrocities are blending into one another. At times, it feels like there’s no light at the end of this tunnel. Like maybe it’s not even a tunnel; rather, we’ve all descended into hell, and it’s fucking dark and dismal as far as the eye can see. Therefore, it seems appropriate to talk about joy. Where do you find it, perhaps small and fleeting, in this mess of a world? What brings you joy — the kind that you can conjure yourself, and the type that sneaks up on you, out of seemingly nowhere?

For me, joy has been a bit elusive. Particularly the kind that I can create. But sometimes, little, everyday things sneak in — the greenery of nature as spring takes hold, an evening spent with friends reminiscing about times past. Yet, other things that used to bring me joy seem lackluster now. While I logically know that this too shall pass, it feels effin’ hopeless.

[Currently listening to: Strange Things by Marlon Williams, off of the Wild Wild Country documentary series soundtrack, about the Rajneesh cult. Cult shows really are the new murder shows, just like SNL told us.]