Meet My Frenemy, Dick.

I sat there and helplessly watched a preacher I didn’t know read the eulogy I wrote about a person she didn't know.

A Typical Conversation with Dick

I’ll take you back to the summer of 2020 to give you an idea how Dick used to talk to me. Or better yet, talk at me. I was sitting in our backyard trying, and failing, to read a fiction book. That bastard Dick kept interrupting what was supposed to be my time to relax.

“What the fuck are you doing wasting your time reading a fiction book? Apparently I need to remind you, once again, of all the shit you could be doing instead. You need to respond to that email. You should be creating that training. What about that fucking article you said you’d write? Oh, and don’t forget lifting weights, carrying your rucksack too you lazy bastard.

And while we’re at it, do I even need to catalogue all the way you’re not meeting the standards you set for yourself Mr. High Achiever? You drink too much pop, you smoke too much pot, you’re inconsistent as fuck on your morning routine, your core values are a joke to you and even when you do work out, you’re a wimp.”

I’m a big believer in that quote, “You’re the the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” But wait, dick sounds like quite an asshole doesn’t he? He sure can be. You’re probably wondering why the hell I have someone like Dick in my life. I’ll tell you why.

He’s me. Or rather, he’s the ever present inner critic in my head pointing out all my shortcomings.

I never did manage to read the book that day. I also never did any of the things Dick was telling me to do. I just sat there and let Dick ruin my afternoon.

Why Am I Like This?

Afterwards, I remember talking to Tanja about the experience. I told her I was going to see a therapist because I wanted to understand why I was like this. It wasn’t coming from a place of upset or despair. I was curious to understand what it was that was feeding Dick such a steady diet of material to lambaste me about.

Being hard this hard on myself seemed like a fairly recent development. When I was younger, it was quite the opposite. I was overflowing with self-confidence, even when it wasn’t warranted. I thought I walked on water in most areas of my life. I was arrogant about my own abilities and potential when compared to most of the people I met. I was kind of a dick

If I objectively looked at my life, it’s not like I was some kind of fuck up. I had a great job and a growing side hustle doing work I loved. I was a good husband and father. I was very fit and did lots of intense athletic challenges. I was working out 2-3 hours every day (which now seems rather extreme). I was a nice person (I think) and had great friends. By most measures, I was living and building a good life.

The Fear Uncovered

So, off I went to find a therapist. My process for picking a one was about as unscientific as you can get. I went online and found this Nigerian guy who looked like a no nonsense dude that would call me on my bullshit. It turns out I was right. Nigerian guys that used to be in the army only know how to give it to you straight.

I won’t bore you with all the details but I’ll give you a summary of the important light bulb moment.

We were chatting and I was describing a recent situation where one of my daughters was really upset about their mom being dead. In the interest of privacy I’ll just say that I was heartbroken and leave it at that. In that moment I felt so goddamn angry at Cindy for killing herself and causing our kids all this pain. I’m not a shake my fist at the sky kind of guy but if I was I would have.

He asked me about the primary emotion driving the anger. Anger is almost always a secondary emotion. That’s a really important idea I’ll get to in another post. I thought about it for a minute and said, “Helplessness. Helplessness because I’m her dad and I can’t take her pain away. I can’t fix it and ultimately, there’s nothing to fix in the first place.”

I felt helpless.

Cindy’s suicide was not something that happened out of the blue. It was preceded by five years of pain and misery. Homeless shelters, rehab, locked psych wards, electro-shock therapy, leaving us for months on end, near bankruptcy multiple times. And that’s not all of it. Needless to say, it was a challenging time for everyone.

The point is, during that time I went from believing I was the captain of my destiny to a passenger in a slow motion train wreck and holding on for dear life. Everything revolved around her mental health and the wreckage her decisions created.

The most pervasive emotion I felt during that time was…helplessness.

On top of that, I couldn’t save the person I loved. I tried everything I knew how to do and she ended up dead.

Helpless.

I coped with all the difficult emotions by drowning them in booze, and drugs. And as I’ve said in previous posts, I drank heavily for 4 years after Cindy’s death. I tried to quit a million times and failed at every last one of them. I felt powerless. I wanted to quit and I fucking couldn’t.

The most pervasive emotion I felt during my battle with the bottle was…you guessed it…helplessness.

I sat back in my chair and a lightbulb switched on.

For fifteen years of my adult life, helplessness was an ever-present companion.

Jay, the overachieving ass kicker, had spent a good chunk of the 21st century feeling helpless.

What in the actual fuck?

Dick Was Protecting Me

All the negative self-talk, all the striving, always trying take on more, my tendency to set impossible standards, my in ability to relax made perfect sense.

I was terrified of ever being helpless again.

If I did more, achieved more, controlled more variables, pushed myself harder, had more irons in the fire then I would minimize my chances of being helpless.

And in that context, Dick’s shit talk makes perfect sense. He knew my deepest fears, even when I didn’t. He was protecting me from facing what scared me the most. He probably could have gone about it in a nicer way, but he was getting the job done.

Of course, I was on a fool’s errand. There will always be more things to do. There will always be more things to control. There will always be higher standards to set. Nothing will ever be good enough when you’re being driven by such a primal fear.

And despite all of that, life will still punch you in the face when you least expect it. It’s just part of our human experience. You never know what’s around the corner.

Enough about Dick. Let’s just say we have a much better relationship now. He can still be an asshole, but tuning the fucker out has gotten much easier.

As a personal development junkie who has done way too much navel gazing, it was shocking to learn that such a powerful fear had been driving me for so long without me realizing it. I’ve since accepted that things take as long as they take to figure out. Sometimes it seems like it takes a weirdly long time. In this case it was over ten years.

Grief and Helplessness

Sometimes I wonder if this Substack will end up being about grief at all. Who knows? But, that’s the focus right now, so let me tie grief and helplessness together.

There’s a close relationship between the two. Often you’ve lost someone and you haven’t been able to do a fucking thing to stop it. You might have tried to get someone help they wouldn’t accept. You might have gotten them help that didn’t work. You might have read every book, searched out every specialist, talked to every person. And despite all of it, they’re fucking dead.

I can’t think of anything that would cause more profound feelings of helplessness than watching someone you love die before your eyes.

Grief also stirs up some powerful and uncomfortable emotions that you can’t control. Anger, sadness and guilt are tough to live through, if you don’t have the tools to navigate them. Hell, they're tough to live through even if you do.

For a guy, who wants to be in control of himself, experiencing emotions you don’t fucking like and can’t change can cause you to feel helpless. Or, you might change them with some self-destructive coping mechanisms which causes a whole other kind of helpless. I’ve been in both places.

You might find yourself unable to find meaning in your life. The person who thought you would share it with is gone. Now what’s the point? You feel stuck in the past and unable to move on with your life. Feeling trapped with no escape will cause some intense feelings of helplessness.

The helplessness gets even more tactical than that. I couldn’t give a eulogy at my own wife’s funeral. I just literally couldn’t do it. I wanted to and I felt like I should but could not. Talk about feeling helpless and pathetic. I sat there and watched a preacher I didn’t know read my eulogy about a person she didn’t know. That really sucked.

Even today, thirteen years later, I’ve never done a single thing to beautify Cindy’s grave. I felt enormous guilt about this last year when I visited the cemetery and still haven’t done shit about it. I know I’m not helpless in this case, but having such a hard time doing something like this make me feel that way.

So yeah, grief and helplessless can be very deeply intertwined.

The Lesson

I can’t speak for women, but helplessness is one of men’s biggest fears. We’re supposed to be strong and capable of “handling” any situation. Admitting to feeling helpless could be perceived as weakness and as a failure to live up to our role in the family or society. How can the person who is supposed to provide and protect let themselves wallow in helplessness?

Here’s the thing though. Helplessness is a choice. Don’t get me wrong - there are things that are out of your control. You can’t control the weather. You can’t control your wife watching the 47th season of Grey’s Anatomy. Hell, you don’t even have full control over the results of your actions.

Here’s the good news though. There are always things in your total control. The stoics call this the Dichotomy of Control.

“Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.”

- Epictetus (a Stoic guy with a gnarly beard)

That quote is really a long winded way of saying we control how we perceive things, what we want and the actions we take. Those three things are powerful beyond measure.

Here’s the lesson: always focus on what you can control.

Simple Tools to Try Right Now

1. Personify your inner critic. I actually heard this idea on Peter Attic’s podcast a few years ago. I think I might have ripped off the name for his inner critic. When you give the voice in your head a name, or turn it into a character, it helps you separate the narrative from your sense of self. There’s something quite liberating about telling Dick to fuck off.

Focus on What You Can Control. This has become a really core part of my personal operating system. Sometimes I flail around a bit before I remember to where to direct my focus but I always get there and usually pretty quickly.

Let me give you an example from my personal life to illustrate what I’m taking about. Let’s say I’m standing at my wife’s grave sobbing about what I’ve lost, what she’s missed and what will never be.

Here’s what I can control:

My perceptions

• Sadness is normal and crying is a powerful release.

• I did the best I could when she was still alive.

• Her life and death gave me some important gifts - especially my children.

• I am grateful I got to spend the time with her I did.

• There are many other ways to feel a deep connection with her, even after all these years.

My Wants

• I want to honour her memory by being of service to others.

• I want to make sure my kids know the person their mom was.

• I want to allow myself to fully experience the emotions I feel.

• I want to focus on the beauty in what is right in front of me rather than what I’ve lost

My Actions

• I will continue to visit her grave and invite my kids

• I will look for ways to use my experience to help others - like writing this never-ending article.

• I will tell my kids about their mom and about our life together

• I will be open-minded to new experiences and new ways to feel a connection to Cindy

I’m not suggesting you’re going to mentally complete this list in your head while you’re standing graveside. But you might think about it while you’re driving home.

Look at those three seemingly simple things; your perceptions, your wants and your actions. There is a hell of a lot more in your control that you might have thought. And focusing on what is in your control is a great way navigate feeling helpless.

I hope you found this helpful. I’d love to hear your feedback and any ideas you have. It will help me elevate my own thinking.

And one last thing:

Fuck you Dick.