My brother has always considered himself a lone wolf. When he was in the military he got a tattoo on his chest of a lone, howling wolf. At the time I thought it was sort of sad. He had just gotten a divorce, our parents had both died and I guess he thought he was all alone in the world. It was just something about it. I, on the other hand, never considers myself a lone wolf. I always seemed to surround myself with people who cared about me, who loved me. Even after I divorced I think I had more people than ever in my life and I could pull from them whenever I needed them. I used to boast that I had three best friends and depending on what I needed one of them could be there for me. And they were. And they still are.
But I do think in a lot of ways that I’m like my brother. In a lot of ways I’m like a lone wolf. But it’s not something that I’m proud of. In fact, I think it’s something that I just realized and feel that I probably need to work on.
I get myself involved in projects. And more often than not I won’t ask for help. I use the excuse that I hate to put someone out on my project. I mean, if I came up with it and I want to do it then I should do the work. And in a lot of ways that is true. But I have recently found that puts a whole lot of unnecessary stress on me and has a tendency to alienate the people who truly do want to help.
I’m going to blame my mother here. It’s not often that I blame my mother for many things in my life but here I’m going to blame her. My mother could work circles around anyone I knew. She was the quintessential multi-tasker. And she was a firm believer that if you wanted something done then do it. It wasn’t a thing of wanting something done the way you wanted it. It was more that if it was important that something got done then do it. That was it. It wasn’t that you thought you could do it better than anyone else, it was more that something needed to get done. I wish I had inherited that when it came to cleaning my house. Although as much as my mother did she would let other people help her clean. Personally I think this group of friends went from one house to another cleaning. Anyway, I digress.
What this does though is make the project or the task or the job just that, a job. In most cases it could be fun. A lot of fun. Because it’s always a lot more fun to complete a project successfully, together. It is a lot more fun when you share the burden but also share the completion. And it’s a lot more fun when you can just look at your comrade in arms and break out laughing because you really did look stupid trying to lift that big box into your car or just shake your head in amazement because you all woke up at 4:30 in the morning because you were so anxious to get the day started and knew that you were going to forget something really important. And it doesn’t count if it’s your kids. They have to do for you. Although that can be fun too.
The excuse I use is that I have a tendency to be bossy. Well, I have come to realize that we all have a tendency to be bossy. Yes, there needs to be a leader in the group, maybe more than one. I just need to realize that it doesn’t always have to be me.
I know that the best way to get past this is to practice it. I also know that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But wolves that run in packs have a tendency to be stronger and cover more ground than the lone ones do. I’m going to practice being a pack animal for awhile.