I've noticed something recently about myself, I tend to over think and complicate overly simple things. I also tend to over analyze any situation, glance, phrase, or tone of voice presented to me. And like all idiosyncrasies I have I tend to think, is it because of hearing loss or is it just the way I am? This is one of those few things which I know for sure is purely because of my hearing loss, even though it's not readily apparent. This means to say, my friends know I over analyze things, they also know I'm hearing impaired, but they don't put the two together, and the reason why I know and they don't is very deeply rooted.
So let's get gardening...
Before hitting the roots, there's a lot of topsoil to go through first, well, there may be a lot, but it's easy to heave it out of the way. So let's get the questions over with first, and hopefully this will be one of those less, asky type insights, and one of those more, so this is what it's really like - that famous "ahhh" moment when it all clicks in your head. I'm a rarity, at least I've always believed, when it comes to how I live my life. I oversimplify the big things, and over complicate the simple easy things.
If I have college applications coming up, or an interview for a job, or I run for a position, I've always been at ease with those things, because very rarely have I outright failed. I've always gotten jobs - even when I didn't want them (and I'm not talking about paid jobs soley, but jobs that people have you do around the office, or school building for credit), and all my applications, for the most part have been successful. Those that haven't, I've been able to rationalize pretty fast as to why I didn't get accepted, either it was as concrete as a score being 20 points too low, or something as hollistic as there were too many qualified people for the job, and while I wasn't able to have been accepted - I wasn't flat out denied. Most of these "rejections' don't make me upset, except, and by god, you had to have gotten through life and realized this by now, there are always exceptions. In my case, a specific example, McGill university said I was good enough in every way to be a student at their university (my first choice) except for one of my SAT 2s being 20 points lower than it should. Needless to say I was pissed off, but after one day of literally sleeping the anger away, I tried to brush it off and move on with life.
One thing I've realized - if you want to be happy, you gotta stop giving a shit about every big thing in your life. Think about it, everytime something big happens and you can't get your first choice, but you settle on your second, third, maybe even your fourth best, something good always happens along the line. you never end up settling and essentially having your life end. And like always, there are exceptions to that rule, and there are people who get so stressed out about not having what they want that they just flat out give up and try not to do anything about their situation. Happiness is not where you are, who you know, happiness is something that comes from whithin, that is so simple, so many people overwork it. You control your happiness, and you can control it only when you realize how simple it is.
Sounds easy right? All those unhappy people have reasons why I'm a moron, or I'm an idiot for saying all this stuff. I got one thing to say to them. Ok. And then I would have to ask them to ask themselves ( I don't really care to hear their answer unless they want to tell me) are you really doing the best you can to do nothing? It sounds complicated, but it's really so simple - a lot of people are not happy with their situation because if they don't get what they want, they stop themselves from enjoying anything else. Newsflash: doing this prevents you from even enjoying what you wanted in the first place even if you manage to achieve it. Alright, so it's easy, and it's hard to do something so easy. Understandable.
But it's also a double edged sword, and it's ridiculously easy to do something so hard, something so energy taxing, and something so meaningless and unimportant. Yet even I do it and I can't help it, but I feel like it has to be done. I will say this, and I will say it bluntly. It might be only me, it might be only people with hearing loss, and you may feel you have absolutely nothing similar to what I'm about to say. Guess what, literally almost everyone does this, but some do it much less than others. People with hearing loss, like me, tend to do this a LOT more.
If someone is walking down the street, and gives you a nod and a slightly happy facial expression, you nod back, give them a slight smile, maybe a chuckle, maybe even a yo. Even the speed, and enthusiasm behind your friend fist bumping you, or even the look and tone people take with their friends once you leave the group or even when you approach it. All of these are the analytical nature of social interactions. And all of these are things I can't help but notice and pick up on. The main reason why this is so concious in my mind, and my mind is constantly racing with people's idiosynachries, or their personalities, or their slightest of slight subtle movement is because I'm hearing impaired. I hear but I don't understand, this we've established. But we've also established I'm left to fill in the blanks, and we've touched on the fact that I have (now) 19 years of social bluffing experience. If someone is happy and talking about something that seemingly interests them, their facial expressions, their body language, their eyes show this. I'm so much more inclined to saying yes to something I didn't understand because it's so likely that they said something like, you know what I mean? Or, it's such an amazing thing, right? But if they look angry or upset, or even frustrated (whether it's at me or not) I really, really, really carefully pick my answers. It's bad of me to do, and I should really get people to repeat things more, but when someone is so happy talking about something, I really feel bad thinking that if I make them repeat it, they might get frustrated saying the same thing over and over again and I wouldn't want that to happen to one of their favorite subjects. There you go, you see, I'm overanalyzing social situations again. And just now I realized there's really two different types of social analysis. The body language type - what I'm dubbing as the Poker Rules of Interaction; what their body language, tone of voice, eyes, smile, facial expressions says about what they are feeling. And the Social Curtain.
The Poker Rules of Interaction is something everyone adheres to and something everyone knows. It's the simple analysis of anything physical, even things they say. Almost everyone does this, and those who do it best can gamble extremely well. But the analysis that's the more taxing one is something I like to call the Social Curtain. Even after I'm done talking to someone, I'm still constantly thinking about what just happened, and even when I'm expecting to meet someone, I'm constantly thinking of what will happen. I'm constantly thinking of what will happen, even while I'm having a conversation. It's so simple as, 'if I say this, he can respond with this, or this, or even that' and it slowly becomes incredibly complex as the conversation goes on because there just are so many possibilities as to how a person can respond. But when they do respond according to one of the many scenarios I have in my head, I feel ready to respond back to them, whether or not it be what I thought I'd say. But the PRI can change the Social Curtain so easily. You can plan an entire conversation, but if their facial expression is just a hair a bit different than what you thought up, you can't possibly expect to say what you planned to say, because at that point it could just be flat out wrong; socially. As much as I'd like to let the chips fall where they may, I can't, I'm constantly trying to fill in gaps, and it gives me such a leg up if I try to fill in those gaps before they even occur. Double layering, even triple layering streets with asphalt to prevent potholes - it takes more time, effort, energy and resources than just repairing the potholes as they come up, but at least you never have to experience a pothole. Worst part is, my Social Curtain can't even 100% prevent all the potholes as well as triple layering a street with asphalt.
Something to think about - because I'm getting tired of doing too much thinking for something so miniscule.
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