Sort of Legal

I’ve never liked shots.

As a child, I was notorious for doing everything in my power to avoid them including literally running away from the chair I was going to get a shot in. I only remember doing this once. What I remember happening more than once is my dad asking, “How can you be afraid of shots? You walk and flip upside down on a balance beam that is 4” wide?” I’m confident enough to bet money he’d restate that same incredulous question if you asked him about my history with shots.

This is not where I tell you that I’ve now come to be one of those people, like my sister, who watches shots as they are administered to her. I still don’t like shots. At all. I still get nervous and hate the feeling, which may be exclusively in my mind, of the needle in my arm in the ten seconds it take to push the vaccine in. Like nails on a chalkboard for me.

My disdain for shots was only exacerbated when a few years ago I passed out after a flu shot. Not right after but about 5 – 10 minutes later as I was checking out and getting ready to go to my car. Now, I have to give a quick warning about that to the medical provider administering the shot and hang out for a bit after, just in case.

But I get shots when needed.

Today, I got two, my second Hep A and my first Typhoid. And then I got nauseous and lightheaded and could feel the blood drain from my face. If you’ve never experienced this amazing combination of sensations (often preceding a faint), it sucks. But I stayed seated, drank some apple juice, reminded myself that this wasn’t an allergic reaction or permanent, it’s just my body’s weird, known reaction to foreign bodies being injected. And about ten minutes later the feeling had passed and I was good to go.

I get shots because I know that the pain and discomfort now will prevent worse pain in the future. In this case, the shots will prevent me from getting deathly ill while traveling alone in foreign countries that are literally around the world from my friends and family. As one of my economic nerd friends would say “it’s all about incentives.” And that is a damn good incentive for getting a shot.

And I Need to Get Shots in Other Areas of My Life.

And because I am traveling solo and have time to think about every thing that happens in a day, I thought about those damn shots after I got them and I thought about the damn project I had to go finish at 4PM on a Friday and I realized that the two were similar.

I need to get some shots in my work life. I need to set what my therapist friends call “boundaries” and be firm about my rate, dates of payments, and turn-around times. I need to stop saying yes to requests to work weekends or get a project turned around in an unreasonably short amount of time or drop everything to deal with the client who is the squeakiest wheel. I need to turn down offers from “black-hole” clients.

This type of firmness and saying no is not easy for me. I am incredibly afraid that I won’t have new projects or clients to replace the ones I let go of. Though, objectively, it has been a long time since I haven’t had work coming in – knock on wood. I also hate disappointing people and I want people to like me. Some of what I need to do won’t please people. That’s just something I need to work on accepting. I will disappoint people, some people won’t like me, and that’s OK.

In exchange for these uncomfortable actions – the shot if you will – I know that long term, I will be better rested, healthier, and happier. That I’ll be able to focus more on the awesome customers and clients that are easy, actually enjoyable, to work with. That I will have more freedom pursue more projects and clients are a better fit and will make me happier. These are the pros that will make the shot worth it.

I think the same idea applies to a lot of other areas of life, for myself, and I suspect others. Think about relationships – how often do people stay in a relationship because of the pain the break-up will cause even though the result can be long term unhappiness?

That’s all of my Thoughts For Now.

But Maybe You Have Some Too…

If you too are on a solo road trip or just need something to ponder, ask yourself this: What shot are you avoiding that you need to take? What kid of short-term pain will you experience if you take the shot? What kind of long-term pain will you experience if you don’t?