One of my favorite Permaculture principles is “Turn problems into assets.” Sometimes expressed as “The problem is the solution.”
In that vein, I have recently reached a new level in terms of figuring out how to turn some of my more debilitating and obnoxious character traits into something of use. When I say obnoxious, I mean not only that these traits are obnoxious to others but also that they are obnoxious to myself.
Some examples:
• Being extremely irritable and sensitive about certain things. Like, a few years back, I was working on a natural building job where we were using salvaged materials (some really great stuff including pilings from an old pier), and it was emotionally killing me that we were using a nail gun. The noise, the extreme violence, the fact that we’d be machine-gunning multiple nails to try to get a successful attachment in one spot, etc. My senior colleague noticed my level of pain and irritability, and suggested in a somewhat condescending manner that I might want to seek therapy. Instead, I just stopped taking jobs where we used nail guns. Which wasn’t hard, since they went against so many of my beliefs, and since I had other ways of paying my bills. Another example of super sensitive and irritable is when I would literally rather do anything than accept a plastic bag at the store. I have taken off my windbreaker jacket on a cold windy day and turned it into a temporary makeshift bag in order to transport my groceries home without having to take on yet another plastic bag. I was like, I would seriously take a pair of pliers and rip out my molars one by one in order to distract myself from the emotional agony of taking on another damn plastic bag right now. Since I like being able to chew, I managed to find another solution. Being super sensitive and irritable can make life exhausting (for those around me as well as myself) — or it can be a great BS detector, or moral reality check.
• Being extremely emotionally needy. Sometimes, I get these crushes on people. I’m not talking about sexual or romantic crushes; it’s more like just being an extreme fan. To the point where the person can wreck my day just by not noticing me, which happens rather often since I’m not really all that inherently noticeable, and don’t always have much useful to offer the person. I can let this character trait run my life, or I can use it as motivation to make sure I don’t need very many things from very many people. I’m much happier being a person who has things to offer people, than being a person who needs things from people. Of course, we are social creatures and we all need other people. I have zero problem with needing other people in general. What I do have a problem with is if I become emotionally needy around one or two specific people. It impedes me from being in service and just enjoying the general wonderfulness of people and life. Being emotionally needy from a very early age has prompted me to develop all sorts of passions and very absorbing pastimes that reduce my emotional neediness, while giving me practical skills and providing a lot of intrinsic joy. Ironically, I have had some people be envious of me because I enjoy my own company so much. If only they knew how I got there, ha ha! I still get the weird crushes but I am able to remind myself that it’s just an emotional tic and that I don’t actually need anything from the person. Sometimes I feel moved to explore the emotion, and it uncovers some deep past seemingly unrelated trauma that I had not yet processed, so it becomes a gateway to healing. (And of course, if the affinity is mutual, then it becomes a deep friendship or colleague relationship or whatever it’s meant to be.)
• Being extremely lazy. I am probably the most lazy person I’ve ever met in my life. This has led me to be able to offer virtuoso-level advice to people who are seeking to save themselves money and labor. In fact, my biggest obstacle — gven the extreme compulsive busywork component of USA culture — is persuading people that they really can just refrain from doing some fussbudget task that would be expensive for them and bad for the planet.
My obnoxious character traits, allowed to run untamed, are super painful to me and can totally wreck my day. As well as being bad for the community and the planet. But they don’t have to!
On a related note, in my first permaculture class, when we started getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, our teacher let us in on a secret. He told us that this info overload was being done on purpose to make us give up trying to compulsively remember everything. The point was to get us to gain pattern-literacy as opposed to trying to compulsively memorize an impossible volume of facts.
How about you, do you have any obnoxious and/or burdensome character traits that you have managed to redirect in a way that brings you joy and freedom, and helps your mission?