Other Kinds of Traps

I wrote recently about Penelope's reassurances to me Her love for me is not a trap. My emotional history has led me to be very wary of being trapped.

Today driving to work and chatting with Penelope We discussed how I view other sorts of situations and commitments in my life as traps as well, and similarly avoid/evade/seek to escape them.

I'm seeing that this may well be a major driving impulse behind much of my adult life.

I've avoided investigating or involving myself in many things because I felt that once I'd done so I'd be "stuck" with it. That I'd have to continue with something I'd started because of the expectations of others that I "finish what I started", or that I'd made commitments I had to keep, or my fear that others would be disappointed (can't have that).

So, I don't allow myself to get too involved in anything. I don't commit myself too strongly to anything. I've lived on the fringes, feeling reasonably "safe" and unencumbered; but also left out and lonely.

Penelope tells me that it's perfectly fine and safe to give myself wholeheartedly to whatever strikes my fancy for as long as it suits me, and I can stop whenever I want. The only genuine obligation I have is to myself. And I can even renege on that one if I'm determined to do so.

I'm the one that gets to choose when and whether and how much I continue to devote myself to an endeavor.

Now obviously, as in all areas of material existence, there are consequences to actions. And not being a total sociopath, I do happen to care how my actions affect those around me.

Many of the consequences are fairly easy to determine ahead of time, and specific allowances for or preparations to avoid or ameliorate them can be made.

Doing that does require a level of interpersonal and emotional communication, honesty, and forthrightness that has not generally been my stock in trade previously.

Another of my several neuroses (if I may so psychoanalyze myself) being a general anxiety regarding and avoidance of confrontation/conflict; particularly with intimate partners.

So, the trick in all this is for me to have the courage to go ahead, being as gangbusters as I feel in whatever gets me excited; and then to drop it if and whenever it no longer does, and not feel guilty about it.

I think I've talked elsewhere about the "spent cost fallacy", this seems related.

I don't have to "stick it out" just because I started it. Being a dilettante is OK.