Weighing words

Unique or odd? Adventurous or foolish? Quick to forgive, or just too distracted to remember your anger? You decide. You tell me. But before you do, let me tell you what I think.

As a child, I never forgot that I was different, but I never felt substandard. I didn’t know I suffered from ADHD, no one did. But my mother, God bless her, made me feel like I was okay.

I didn’t have to be like anyone else, it was okay to just be me. No, that’s not quite right, not quite all there was to it. It was absolutely imperative that I be me, that I be just me.

I didn’t have to conform, all I had to do to please her was to bring my best to everything I did. It was always enough as far as she was concerned, and never enough as far as I was concerned. I always wanted to try harder. I didn’t always, but I always wanted to.

Brave or foolish?

My childhood was a good one. I was encouraged by my mother to pursue happiness rather than success. It turns out pursuing happiness leads to success. Okay, it actually turns out that the only success that really matters is happiness, it just doesn’t seem that way until you get there. While in pursuit of success, we often think that being successful will make us happy. As ADHDers, that pursuit could go on indefinitely. I don’t want to discourage you, I really do want to encourage you. But I also want to say that you need to take yourself into account and be proud of what you do.

Quick or slow?

When you’ve lost track of your objectives, don’t beat yourself up. Give yourself a pat on the back for realizing you were distracted and then get back on track. Berating yourself will not make you more productive. It will not get you back on schedule. Telling yourself “well done” when you find you’ve wandered, will put you back in the game with a bit of confidence to help you along the way. You may have lost more time than you will make up, but that’s no reason to go back to work with the handicap of a deflated ego.

Intuitive observation or inappropriate one?

So now we’re coming to my question, the one I want you to ask yourself today. And before I give it to you, I want you to know this: I have become fond of all of you. I have found you to be giving and caring people. I’ve found you to be people who will reach out across miles of internet and hold out your hand to me with passion and compassion. I have found you to be, for the most part, accepting and forgiving. And I accept each of you as my people, as members of my tribe.

So tell me now, are we odd? Or are we unique?

If you can’t guess by now how I feel about us, I think you must be having a pretty distracted day. I think we’re unique, unusual, quick, quick to forgive and to forget, brave, adventurous and creative. Any one of us may not have all those qualities, but as a group, as a tribe, as a community, I say we hold enough value that the world would be a damned sorry place without us.

You, all of you, each and every one of you, make me proud to be one of you. Now what was it you wanted to say?

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    Last reviewed: 20 Jan 2012