The Trouble with Being Earnest

by Lily　　April 15, 2012 11:16 am

Reflections
It’s not truly my job to take care of anyone. There is no obligation for me to do so. It has been “suggested” that I feel obligated due to various rumored assumptions.
In truth, I consider them a friend. When my friends have bad days, I do what I can to cheer them up. When they have bad weeks, I throw a minor party. When they have bad months, I organize goal-oriented expeditions to give them a victory.
The real trouble with this one, which I have come to realize, is that not understanding the circumstances around it, failing to be proactive about understanding it, and presuming that it was fairly ordinary has resulted in quite the frustration for myself and my friends.
In the future, three things need to happen when I set out on something as ambitious as this (and I honestly didn’t feel it was that ambitious to start!):

Actual research into the matter-at-hand, even if others know what they’re doing, it’s important for me to have some idea as to what’s going on.

If I am unable to do said research, I make sure someone who is knowledgeable is there and in charge.

Regardless of the situation, set a time limit as to how long I can manage in case everything else goes wrong, there is no use hurting myself when things just aren’t going well.

The Disaster, in brief
It started off promising, we had a strong force of support, we were (relatively) within the right time frame, and nobody was asking questions.
I only started to get a bad feeling when we reached step 2 and there was an impressive rush north, but sometimes it’s better to be thorough in case bad things happen, right?
Things didn’t truly reveal how bad they were until we managed to solidify things, clear step four, and it was revealed that the strongest among us really did not know what they were doing.

In the end, it was 12 hours, give or take, of effort which ultimately resulted in my friend feeling a bit worse for wear and nothing but truly confused exiles to show for it.

My Minor Guilt
After this, I was particularly down. It occurs to me later that it is potentially selfish to feel so down about the failure in question. This wasn’t about me, and my feeling down only oriented focus on to me. Other friends jumped in to offer support and comfort when I wasn’t truly the one who needed it.
I did learn a good deal during this time, however, and should be better prepared when this situation arises again. I sometimes wish I were all grown up already, and stopped behaving quite like a child at times.

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