Loading ...This is another World of Warcraft (WoW) relation to life.
For those not familiar with the game, WoW is an online world game you play where you level up a character by completing quests. It is extremely multi-faceted and for many people, is a time suck. We’ve been playing it for a little over a year now, and I’ve drawn many parallels to real life.
One parallel I drew last night was when I went out to do a quest that ultimately would end up with me earning a wintersaber tiger mount. It is a purple mount, which means it is a very rare object. In order to earn the purple mount, I have to complete a series of quests until I have earned the Exalted reputation by a particular group. You earn reputation points by doing quests in favor of the group’s goal.
In Wow, whenever you go somewhere new, you automatically start out with a Neutral reputation. You can’t just walk into a new area and expect the people to trust you. You must earn their trust. As you progress through the quests, you may find your reputation changing from Neutral to Friendly, then to Honored, then Revered, and finally Exalted. On the opposite side, if you do quests that work against the group, your reputation will drop from Neutral and go to Unfriendly, then to Hostile, and finally, Hated. If you become hated, you will be attacked on sight. Naturally, you’ll generally want to stay on the favored side of a group, unless you earn honor points with one group by becoming hated by another. Leveling your reputation is extremely time-consuming, but the rewards are fabulous if you keep with it.
One of the things I’ve come to realize about myself is that I don’t have very strong boundaries when it comes to other people. This has created more chaos, hurt and confusion in my life than I care to admit. It is the single largest blind side I have.  It has caused me to let the wrong people into my life and keep the right people out. I have trusted people who have no business handling my trust. Basically, I’ve been letting people in and granting them reputation points when they haven’t earned them.
I’ve decided I’m going to run my life more like WoW. I’m going to treat newcomers into my life as Neutral. Then, as they interact with me (quests), they will either earn points in a positive direction, or prove that they should be considered Unfriendly, Hostile, and at the extreme, Hated.
More often than not, I’ve met people who initially come in and do some quests, and then they leave for a long time. When they come back, however, they expect me to treat them as Exalted. The problem is, they haven’t done the work. In the past, I have granted Exalted status when it hadn’t been earned, and that led me to getting hurt repeatedly. Did I do it just because I wanted them to like me so I could feel accepted? Yeah, probably. I can’t think of a better reason.
Whenever I do get hurt, all I want to do is kick myself for letting it happen again. I want to crawl in a hole and never come out. And I do for a while. But then I watch life going by without me and soon, I want to join in the fun again. This time, I tell myself, I’ll be better about keeping myself safe. This leads me to be overly guarded and I have a hard time allowing people the Neutral reputation they should have when they come in.
In fact, this past week was one of the worst weeks I can ever remember, and it was because I had been struggling so very badly with deep-seeded guilt. A couple of weeks prior, I had turned away someone who acted as though they should be Exalted when they hadn’t put in the work to earn it. Previously, I had treated this person as being Exalted, so to tell them “no†this time freaked me out. Not only had I granted them Exalted status when it wasn’t earned, but this person was used to having Exalted status with me. When I told them “no†this time without fully understanding why it was okay to say no, I suffered a tremendous fear backlash. A fear tsunami. I was afraid that because I’d held my ground and said no, that this person with a false Exalted status would forever and ever reject me. Yet I couldn’t continue to give them Exalted status in my life, because the last time they came through my life, they hurt me very badly. Sometimes it sucks being the eternal optimist! I felt completely stuck between two extremes – I thought either I let this person continue with Exalted status, fully aware that this person has an extremely large propensity to hurt me, or I turn them away, and face the possibility that this person might never come back into my life. This person is not used to being turned away by me.
All because I had poor boundaries in the first place and I gave an Exalted status to someone who did not truly earn it. Â
I want to thank my wonderful husband, who poor thing, gets to pick up the pieces of me and so very gently puts me back together. He suffered the brunt of my fear tsunami. But between him with his tough and gentle love, and my resolve to incorporate better boundaries, I am not going to let this happen again. Nor will I feel fear or guilt when I turn away this person who has not earned their reputation by doing right with me. It is time I start doing my job as the gatekeeper of my life.
So my new personal stance is this: anyone who comes in is treated as Neutral. From there, their actions will help me determine if they move up to Friendly, or down to Unfriendly. As time goes on and they prove themselves, they will move up more, or move down more. But most importantly, anyone who comes in, does a couple of quests and then leaves, only to come back later, they will find their reputation with me has not advanced. They will still be Neutral or Friendly – wherever it was that they left off. Maybe this will help me from getting hurt so much, and I won’t feel guilty for saying, “I’m sorry you can’t access that part of my life because your reputation isn’t high enough with me.â€