Laugh and Redirect

As if Sunday wasn't enough!

After my first day of air traffic mess, in which I never got off the ground, as described here, I thought that the next day would be easy. Not so, as it turned out. I almost missed the person who was going to drive me back to the school from the airport (no short drive, and nothing you want to use a taxi for), after my flight to school was delayed in Atlanta. And I was so concerned that it became such that I wasn't able to sleep.

So I stumbled around to my first classes, and learned that I'm going to have to run very fast (I scheduled a class close to the first in another building, but at least I know the rooms now), and tomorrow I'll have to get the syllabus. And, worse yet, I wasn't able to get a new card that would let me into my building (which was missing) because the people who could are ill or on jury duty, apparently.

I remember when these kind of circumstances would really bother me, and more than being a little perturbed. Of course, the response was different depending on the circumstances, but I would probably put a good bet that all of this would make me pretty angry, and quite potentially ruin a day. It probably would for a lot of people, actually, but probably more so for an autistic, where there is generally more intense focus.

Now, I'm even surprised by my total lack of reaction. Even within some rather stark confines, it just goes right past me. Where I usually would be at least annoyed, and probably visibly so, it's very different now.

I think this highlights one of the more important skills an autistic needs to learn in order to work in a normal context; the ability to redirect focus.

This might seem particularly normal, but it ignores that, at least comparatively, a non-autistic doesn't hold focus. From my autistic perspective, most others can't seem to keep on a subject for a significant lack of me. For their part, they'd call me a stubborn bastard, a title I'll gladly hold over the alternative, truth be told.

But, as useful as that can actually be, it's also an issue because such compounding circumstances will easily overwhelm someone who focuses on circumstances, wants to fix them (as most probably would), and doesn't come up with any good ideas. That scenario has been played so often in my life, it's become a bad joke in some degree. Mind you, it can be an extremely serious thing, as it can lead to excessive stress, but it's amusing, looking at it from the perspective of when it's not happening when it should be, at least traditionally.

Mind you, this is far different from moving on. It remains in the mind, as that's not to be helped, but the focus on the actions and circumstances of that changes, and it allows you to effectively keep the thought without suppressing it while not being controlled by it. So it'd be inaccurate to say that it was to dismiss the thought. Honestly, I'm not really sure if I ever truly moved on in regards to anything, and I'm not going to think that it will happen, either.

A better question, I suppose, is what to teach to avoid it, and I'm not really sure I can answer that well. I learned by myself, and the line of thinking was somewhat existentialist in nature, which is probably not a practical thing to teach. But it's important to note to one in that position, I think, that the energy could really be better spent, and it might not be a bad idea to give a specific example, and perhaps pointing out the worst-case scenario as it really is, as sometimes the worst-case scenario is pretty minor.

In any event, I am now, rather than annoyed, somewhat amused, oddly enough, by the lack of being able to get in and out of my own building without help (a few layers there to laugh at). Maybe I could care more if I had something more significant at stake (I can wait outside in the cold for a while, no problem), but I know that, where I would have once been annoyed, I laugh and redirect, not to be confused with laugh and move on.