nicholasbraman.com

Tag: self-awareness

  • Waiting for the Wake-Up Call

    Waiting for the Wake-Up Call

    I had my first real health scare last year during my annual screening. My treadmill ECG test came back abnormal. I’ve always been pretty healthy, lucky enough not to have any chronic issues or frequent illnesses, so this was quite a shock. After booking a follow-up with a cardiologist, it started playing with my mind. While hitting pads at a normal Muay Thai session, I started to feel tightness in my chest. My heart, which was beating fast already from the exercise, started beating even faster, flailing around inside my chest, telling me I should stop.  

    I kept thinking about what I could have done differently to not end up there: fewer burgers, fewer beers, more exercise… or maybe less exercise? I didn’t know, I was confused and frankly, scared. I started thinking about my daughter and what if she lost me early, or if I would ever be able to meet my grandkids. I kept the worries to myself, but they were eating at me from inside.

    After a full panel of tests, including a CT scan, it turns out the ECG reading was a false positive. There’s nothing wrong with my heart, and I don’t have to worry about suddenly keeling over. Before the results came back, I told myself I would feel amazing if I got cleared. I wanted to be one of those people with a new lease on life, a second chance I was going to make the most of, never take a single day for granted again. But that didn’t happen. I was relieved I didn’t have to quit sports, and that I’m not in imminent danger of a heart attack at any moment. But that sense of drive or renewed purpose never came. 

    Then I remembered my parents’ wake-up call. I was 16 when 9/11 happened. My childhood was in a pretty normal suburban American neighborhood outside of Seattle. But after the attack, something woke up in my parents; they decided or realized they weren’t happy living in the “city” and wanted to be in a smaller town, closer to nature. Within three months, they had moved five hours’ drive from Seattle, across the mountains, just outside a tiny town with only one stoplight. I went from a high school of 1500 to a town of the same size. 

    Logically, I understand how a tragedy like that can make people realize life could end at any time and push them to rethink how they want to live. But they never seemed unhappy before, so the decision to move to the middle of nowhere always felt like it came out of thin air. 

    My not feeling strongly could mean I’m doing enough to live the life I want, so no regrets or big changes needed. On the other hand, what if I’m just not self-aware or reflective enough to know I want something different in life until I’m much older and it’s too late to do anything about it? In most ways, I’m a pretty easy-going person. I don’t have huge ambitions to take over the world or anything. But I also am particular about my likes and dislikes and how I spend my time. Which is why I thought getting my heart cleared would push me to use my time more intentionally. But nothing feels like it’s changed. I don’t know what that means yet, or if it will hit me later. But I keep wondering if I should feel more than I did. riate comment, how am I going to teach her enough? Because I believe I am strong and confident. And yet, in both situations, even where there was no physical danger, I stayed quiet.

  • Who Gets The Best Of Us

    Who Gets The Best Of Us

    Recently, my family told me they feel like I treat other people better than I do them. My first reaction was defensive. Of course, I act “nicer” around colleagues or strangers. With family, I don’t need to self-censor or perform. And honestly, it doesn’t feel unusual; most people probably do this to some extent. But once I sat with it, I started wondering whether that’s actually true for everyone, and if it is, why we so often fail to show up as our best selves at home.

    At home, I notice my irritation bubbling up over small things, like having to repeat myself or when my wife doesn’t know something I think she should. The kind of thing I would never let show if a colleague did it. I’d smile, let it go, and find a tactful way around it. But at home, my tone becomes sharp, the annoyance shows on my face, and it hurts the people I want to hurt the least. It’s not planned or conscious, and I always regret it, but it still happens.

    Closeness makes it easy to say things we would never say to anyone else. Maybe I hurt the people closest to me because I don’t have my public face on, and my words come out rougher than they need to. Maybe it’s just volume. More time together means more chances to irritate each other. But that doesn’t feel like the whole story. It feels like something gets used up out there, being who I think I need to be in the outside world, and by the time I’m with my family, I don’t want to have to be careful anymore.

    Reading some of Erving Goffman’s work helped me make sense of that. He wrote about how much of social life is performance, how we’re constantly adjusting ourselves to fit the situation we’re in. Seen that way, it isn’t surprising that we’re more careful, measured, and restrained in public than we are at home. That level of attention takes energy, even if we don’t notice it in the moment. And when that energy runs out, our ability to stay patient and measured goes with it. What’s left shows up most clearly at home, in shorter patience, sharper words, and a lower tolerance for the people who are closest to us.

    The irony is hard to ignore. We give our best selves to people who matter less in the long run, and the people who matter most get whatever’s left over. That feels backwards. But swinging too far in the other direction, treating colleagues or strangers worse just to preserve more energy for family, doesn’t feel right either. I’m still trying to understand what it means to give the people closest to me more than whatever happens to be left, and whether there’s a reasonable balance between letting my inner asshole out and putting on an act at home. Finding it, and keeping it, doesn’t seem easy.