The Good Fight

Dear Darcy:

I am so tired of fighting the world.  Fighting with my friends, fighting with my family, fighting for my career, fighting for acceptance of being gay.  Everything’s a fight in my life.  My mother once told me that my biggest flaw is my inability to accept things as they are.  The thing is, I don’t like things as they are.  And when I fight, those things change.  I don’t think it’s reasonable to accept homophobia.  I don’t think it’s wrong to expect people to treat me well.  I live in Manhattan – no matter what your career, you have to fight for it here.  I just happened to pick a career that is hard no matter where you live: Media.  I want to make a difference in the world.  I don’t seem to be content living a quiet life.  But it’s beginning to exhaust me.  I’m always mad at somebody or something.  I wish I were less passionate.  Is there such a thing as I-Don’t-Care therapy?

ANSWER

You’re OK, Rebel.  You’ve got passion running through those veins for sure.  And that’s a huge strength of yours.  You probably will change the world, particularly if you leverage your profession for that purpose.  We need people like you in this world to remind us to question things.  Too many people just follow the rules.  They live a life without emotional highs and lows.  I too have looked at those folks at times in my life with envy.  They possess a different kind of strength from ours:  The grin and bear it muscle.

The thing about strengths is that what makes us strong in some areas of life is often the same trait that makes us weak in other areas.  You just need to tweak the volume on your passion knob when it comes to family and friends… lower it.  They are not the ones to whom you should direct your desire to promote change.  Dial it down around loved ones.  Rebel, if I spoke to my friends the way I speak professionally, I’d have none.  No one wants to hang out with a know-it-all.  The thing that makes me good at my job is precisely the thing that I have to control in my personal life.

You have a need to right wrongs and that’s an amazing gift that few people have. Allow your passion volume to blow out the speakers when you’re dealing with wrongs on a macro level.  And allow yourself some time off when you’re not working so that you can recharge.  You just need to pick your battles.  And I certainly hope that you never find a shrink who will administer I-don’t-care therapy.  Keep fighting the good fight, Rebel.  For all of us.

Writer’s Stats: Female, lesbian.