And the fears it brings later in life.
This should be quick – I just want to get something off my mind, rather than deep dive into it. Maybe one we can expand on these thoughts if there’s community interest.
My spouse and I bought our house five years ago. It’s our first house and we are so incredibly happy here. We often say we’ll live here until we retire, if not later.
In the family room downstairs there is one pot light – also known as a recessed light. Now I had a vendetta against pot lights before this story and it’s only gotten worse since. (This is mostly a joke.) A little a year after we got the house that light went out.
So I replaced the bulb.
Easy enough to do on a pot light. Just take the front casing down, unscrew the old bulb, screw the new one in, and push the casing back into its place. The teensiest bit more complicated than a regular light. But. Literally just changing a lightbulb.
The light still wouldn’t turn on after changing the lightbulb.
Having three years’ experience in the electrical trade, my brain decided that this meant I would need to properly take down the light and look in the box for any problems. If I couldn’t find any issues in the light box I would open up the switches that control it and continue to troubleshoot from there.
Naturally, with this being an actual amount of work that I had ahead of me, the job sat.
For four years.
I wish I could say that it was just laziness keeping me from fixing the light. We truly never use the room it’s in and even when I walk through it to get to or from my office the light from the other rooms is enough to see where I need to go. It was never a priority. But four years is a long time to be so lazy.
It did, however, take me the full four years – and actually fixing the light – for me to understand why I was putting this off.
I was scared.
Growing up I did well in school and early in my first year of high school my mother had me tested. Yes. That’s not just a joke I used to deflect when I’m feeling anxious. I was identified as gifted and put into a program to offer me a more challenging and rewarding path through school.
To quickly summarise how I used this step up in life: I burnt myself out quickly in the first year, found marijuana and alcohol in the second year and pretty well skipped ¾ of my classes passing just on test scores, and started my electrical apprenticeship with the last two years because it was an easy way to get the rest of the credits I needed.
Despite my poor usage of my time, I was constantly told that I could do anything I wanted. And, truthfully, I felt like I could do anything I wanted. I can’t remember anything that I tackled through my youth that I didn’t succeed in, and succeed fairly easily.
Fast-forward a few decades now. Now I’m so used to picking up any new skill or concept so easily, that I’m afraid of if I don’t. If I don’t grasp something immediately I’m a failure. I don’t live up to the expectations that were put on me from day one of school.
If I couldn’t figure out what the problem was with the pot light in my family room, I failed. I was the one with electrical experience. I was the one that was so proud of being able to tackle ‘masculine’ tasks without having to ask for help.
But what if I couldn’t figure it out?
So four years later I finally decided enough is enough and I don’t have any other homemaker tasks to procrastinate. I flick the breaker off, assuming I’ll have to do more inside the actual box later, but decide to fiddle a little with the bulb first.
I take the casing down, unscrew the bulb, and screw it back in ensuring I’ve got it in all the way.
Flick the break and switch back on.
The light turns on.
We went without a light in our family room for four years because I haven’t enough experience in failure to face it with my head held high.
At least now I know.
Maybe now I’ll be brave enough to face more potential failures. I guess we’ll find out.
Remember, grooviness counts. ✌🏼
ToadieZzz 