She's Ba-aack: Evie the Party Crasher

Evie. That evil inner critic voice came back the other day. She was super-reasonable sounding, which is when she’s most dangerous. What she was saying was that my blogging career probably has run its course. She reasoned that I’ve probably gotten all I can out of the experience, and that I’ve probably said everything of use or interest I have to say so it’s probably time to wrap it up and move on to something else. Probably. She didn’t yell or scream or call me stupid or tell me to get a law job, not exactly. She just mildly suggested that it was time to move on.

I mentioned it to Mike and he said, “What?!?!” I said, “Well, yeah, I mean I don’t really know what I’m doing and I dunno, I think maybe it’s time to start something else.” He said, “I don’t understand. You love writing the blog and people are loving what you have to say. Why would you stop?”

And then I realized what had happened. I’d watched a TV show about Wall Street traders and one of the characters mentioned that one of the guys who had been with the firm got fired and then blackballed and then became a – blogger – and it was obvious that meant the person was a loser waste of life and might as well die.

And so without any conscious thought at all Evie snapped up that input and twisted it and told me to stop doing what I was doing because doing it makes me a loser waste of life. Duh, smack the forehead I-could’ve-had-a-V8-style. I know I’m a porous person. I absorb outside inputs really really quickly, and without filtering them for my values or priorities.

It’s like any old idea can just pull up a seat at my dining room table and I’ll feed it and offer it a beverage rather than saying, “Hey, who invited you?” or even, “Please leave. There’s no room for you here.” These party crasher thoughts march right into my head as if they belong there, then they change the music, re-arrange the furniture, alienate the original attendees who were having a perfectly nice time, plop down on the sofa, put their feet up without taking off their dirty boots, and start demanding I serve them. And in the past I would serve them.

Well guess what people? That is over. I know what I like and what’s good for me. And I can tell you’re not my friends. You’re bounced. I’m not bringing you shit. I’m cutting the music. I’m kicking you out of my house. When you knock at the door next time I’m not even gonna answer. Or I’ll open it very briefly and close it right away. Not interested. Buh-bye. Move along. See ya. Have a nice day. I’m gonna do just that. Peace.