Category Archives: Brokenness

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Knowledge, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

Ignorance is Ignorance

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When I walk in, heads turn… Or at least that’s what happens in my dreams. Sometimes. More often than not, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night to a school dream. I’m thirty-one years old, this shouldn’t be happening but it does. It’s been eight years since I graduated college, twelve since high school. But my subconscious still seems to believe that I have more homework to do, more tests to take, more projects to work on. The human psyche is a strange place. Not easily understood. 

If it were, we wouldn’t have such studies as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I’ve said before that I studied business because I thought it was what was expected of me, but I studied sociology because I was interested in learning about people. I needed to know why people were the way that they were. I needed to know the motive behind every action. I needed to know why serial killers turned out the way that they did. Most of the time, fucked-up people aren’t born fucked-up people. I’d like to believe that we start with a clean slate, and are shaped by nature, nurture, and trauma. Something steers deviants down the untrodden path. They wouldn’t just veer off on their own. 

But this much is still not understood. Some cope with trauma well—use adversity as their stepping stone. Others wilt under pressure. Some are liable to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers: repeating mistakes, using the same crutches, abusing the same vices. Others see the error in their ways, using it as a deterrent. What makes one sibling resign themself to the fact that, “my father is an alcoholic so I will be one too,” but the other believe that, “my father is an alcoholic so I refuse to be one”? I went to college asking questions such as these, seeking knowledge. I came away with a few answers, but many more questions.

Growing up I was taught not to question things. My parents were older than me, therefore they had the answers. My teachers and pastors were more educated, therefore they knew what was right. But this discounts the fact that people are people, even if they are your elders. Your parents and teachers are not superheroes. They are not angels. They are not beings incapable of wrongdoing. They are fallible just as you are. They can lie, they can cheat. They can hurt you, they can do fucked up things. When we’re young, it’s hard for us to understand that our parents are just other people. It doesn’t register in our still-developing brain, and that’s fine for a time. Ideally, there should be no greater role model in your life than your parents. However, things don’t always work out that way. Your parents can be selfish. They can be misguided. They can think that they’re doing what’s right, but doing more harm than good. We’re all figuring things out as we go along—it’s no different with them.

One sign of becoming more mature is developing a better understanding of the world. You start realizing that your parents do not in fact have all the answers, but you also realize after the fact that they did know better than you did at the time because they had more life experience. There comes a time in your life when your parents’ commands become suggestions. Their advice is still valuable to you, but you no longer take it at face value. You listen, you interpret, and you determine. What they say might work for you, it might not. Regardless, they are no longer in control of your life. You find that every last decision rests on your shoulders. You live the life that you want to live, and with that comes true happiness. You start doing what satisfies you rather than doing things to check a box. 

For twenty-seven years I did things to check a box. I did what I was told. I did what I thought was expected. I did what I was good at. But I didn’t do what I wanted. I didn’t follow my passion. I didn’t do what would make the greatest impact on those around me. Maybe this is just my cynicism at play, but I’m convinced that nearly every company tells you the same lies. They feed your ego: telling you that you’re such a great employee, how much you mean to the company, and that you have a real future. There is some semblance of truth to their statements, but I don’t buy that their intentions are always pure. When it comes down to it, companies are looking for someone to do their work for them. Sometimes this aligns with your skillset and your values, but oftentimes it does not. I was told for years that I would be great at customer service (which I was) and that sales was where the money was at (I did not in fact get paid more as promised). When the time came, I was given more responsibility and a title change, but not paid what I was worth. For many years I accepted it—I didn’t know any better. I let fear dictate my life. I allowed outside circumstances to direct me. I thought my life was outside of my control so I didn’t even bother, and I suffered for it.

At some point it started to click, but it took being lied to and tricked over and over. I stopped letting fear influence my decision making. I said, “no more.” I began to embrace the unknown, because I finally accepted that what I did know wasn’t working. I needed to try something new, to start taking risks. Otherwise, I was destined to be just another deadbeat stuck at a dead end job. There’s already enough of those in the world, we didn’t need another. Saying no to my fear was the most freeing experience in my life. But in order to do that, I had to get out of my comfort zone. I could no longer be satisfied with my okay life. I could no longer let myself be walked all over. I could no longer keep checking boxes on a career path that I wasn’t built for. Selling products that people don’t need was not it. I’m not a salesperson. I’m not a market analyst. I’m not a customer service rep. None of that was me. I was never meant to climb the corporate ladder. I’m not cutthroat enough for that nor do I have that type of ambition. I’m a writer first and foremost, and a knowledge seeker second. Someone who provides inspiration and spreads hope. That’s what I was meant for: helping people in my own way, by using my words. Being encouraging, being thoughtful, contributing positivity to the world—that’s what drives me.

In order to do that, I have to keep asking questions. It doesn’t matter how many answers I find, it’s a never-ending quest for more knowledge. The more informed I am, the better equipped I am to figure out what exactly it is that I believe. Growing up, we were told that asking questions showed our doubt, but doubt is not always the negative emotion that we perceive it to be. You can’t have a dichotomy without both the good and the bad. You can’t have happiness without anger or sadness. You can’t have success without failure. You can’t have belief without doubt. Doubt helps you to strengthen your faith (regardless of what religion you follow). You need to graduate from blindly believing everything that you’re taught, to formulating your own world view.

This much is imperative. You are not a clone of your parents. You are not your cousin. You are not your sibling. You are your own person, and as such, you need to know where you stand. You’re not going to agree with your family on everything, that’s just not realistic. Your parents raise you the way that they think is right, but sometimes good intentions are nothing more than that. Your parents will disappoint you, you will disappoint your parents, that’s inevitable. The way you live your life is not contingent on the way that they live theirs. Growing up, you are subject to their worldview because you haven’t experienced anything different. Your parents instill in you certain values, but over time, they may change. Once you become an adult, it’s time to find out for yourself. Time to form your own opinions. 

But you can’t do that without asking questions. When you stop asking questions is when you settle. When you accept what is told without fact-checking, you allow yourself to be brainwashed and manipulated. You lose sight of what you believe, and instead believe what you’re told to believe. Of course, there needs to be a balance between finding your own truth and trusting wholly in others. Too much of either isn’t healthy. If you lack trust in others you become fueled by paranoia. If you blindly trust what others tell you then you lose your sense of self. It’s hard for me to say which is worse, but I’ve seen how destructive either one can be. All I know is that your ignorance is not bliss… Your ignorance is ignorance. You need to distance yourself from that. If you have the opportunity to learn more about society as a whole and where you fit in, why wouldn’t you take it? Your worldview is not a static entity. It should change based on what you know and feel. Unfortunately, the world is a fucked-up place, and discouragement often comes easy. But just because many people are driven by greed and self-interest doesn’t mean that you can’t make a difference. You have good that you can impart. You have something to offer. Never forget that.

It may not be evident to you now what it is that you can offer, but it will become evident over time. You just need to keep working on yourself, improving a bit at a time. Progress may be slow, it may be fast, but it requires persistence. Lay down the groundwork so that you have a good foundation. If your foundation is strong then nothing can shake you. It starts with learning to become in-tune with yourself. Know who you are. Know what you stand for. Understand and accept your emotions. Listen to your mind, body, and soul. If something doesn’t feel right, ask yourself why. If your everyday life feels tedious, then find something that motivates you. Realize that all emotions, positive or negative, are necessary. If the situation calls for anger or sadness, embrace it, don’t shun it or suppress it. Let it run its course, but don’t let it stew. Allow yourself to react, then let it go. Not every situation or conversation needs to be manipulated for your purposes. Not everything needs to have a positive or negative outcome. Sometimes some things just are. Shit happens. 

Letting go isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes we feel the need to control everything. Things need to work out for us, otherwise why are we doing them? But that’s a fallacy. Every situation comes with a lesson, but it does not always come with a tangible result. Just because something is neither beneficial nor harmful doesn’t mean that it’s useless. Doing something positive that doesn’t garner praise or recognition doesn’t invalidate its worth. A kind gesture is a kind gesture. Lack of gratitude shouldn’t prevent you from acting out of love. 

However, sometimes we overthink things such as these. We build up walls and create facades. Sometimes this is due to us being afraid to commit, being wary about opening up. Other times it’s because we’re afraid to face hard truths. Putting in time and effort on maintaining these images often results in a feeling of emptiness. That’s because we aren’t being true to ourselves and to others. We wanted so badly for others to see us as nice, intelligent, beautiful, or unique. We were trying so hard, but it wasn’t needed. We just needed to be us. To be genuine. To be true to ourselves. To accept the things that make us us. Our strengths, our weaknesses, our passions, our interests, our personality. No one element is unique to anybody, but we are not the elements, we are the sum of the parts. The totality of it is what makes us unique. Embrace it. Live the life you want to live. Be the person that you want to be. Do what makes you happy. Stop giving a shit about what others think. Once you know your worth, the opinion that matters the most is your own.

Brokenness, Mindfulness, Poetry, Reflections

Grand Delusions

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False realities/
Untruths/
Living a lie/
Full of grand delusions/
Building a fabrication in your mind/

Unwilling to compromise/
Unwilling to face facts/
Inability to accept hard truth/
Failure to fix that which needs fixing/
Can’t ever admit that you’re wrong/

Grand delusions pollute your mind/
Cloud your thinking/
Impair your judgment/
A handcuff that holds you back/
A stranglehold that binds/

Grand delusions—a demon within/
A malevolent spirit/
A nasty train of thought/
Poisons the well/
Entombs your soul/

Living a lie/
Being intentionally blind/
Ignoring that which hurts/
Ignoring any and all advice/
Toxicity and nastiness, we’ll leave you to it/

Grand delusions are ties that bind/
Irrational thoughts, illogical conclusions/
A drain on inner peace/
Failure to accept reality/
Failure to grow, failure to move on/

Stuck in your ways/
Stubborn as can be/
Perpetually in a daze/
Tunnel vision, low visibility/
We tried to help, but it’s gone beyond/

We’ll leave you to it/
Trapped in your mind/
Refusing to accept/
If you want blessings you can’t reap before you sow/
You can’t expect effect without a cause/
There is no change without effort/
You can only heal if you feel the pain/

Art, Brokenness, Growth, Healing, Poetry

Sad Boy

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Isolated and alone I sat
On my lonesome I was
An outcast—to no one I belonged
No one to claim me as their own

In my silence I was raging
In my mind I was misunderstood
In my heart I was hurting
So desperately alone

Each new day brought on more hardship
Something I didn’t know how to handle
No one ever told me it would be this hard
No one ever told me growing up would hurt this much

I was just a sad boy
Didn’t know where I could find my peace
Just a sad boy trying to find some meaning
Trying to find someone who would accept me for me

An outcast on my own
A sad boy desperately alone
Isolated and misunderstood
Lost and looking for meaning

No one ever told me it would be this hard
No on ever told me that growing up would be this way
I thought that a better life would come another day
But the more I learned, the harder it seemed

The older I got, the more I hurt
The more I hurt, the more I spiraled
The more I spiraled, the more alone I felt
Alone and on my own

A sad boy with nothing to gain
And nothing to lose
A sad boy who wasn’t alone
So many others hurting and crying
So many others feeling the weight of the world
We might be isolated, but we are not alone
We might be misunderstood, but it doesn’t mean we’re not loved

No longer a sad boy
No longer an outcast
No longer a sad boy
No longer unloved

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

A Neverending Journey

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I met someone. Words that are often overused, but words that mean something. I didn’t meet a crush, or a lover, or some sort of romantic connection. I’m spoken for, and happily so. But I met someone nevertheless. Someone who will help me on my journey. Someone who will help me accomplish my dreams. I met a friend, and a collaborator, and a partner. 

My life the last few years has been a bit of an adventure (at least for my standards). Since December 2019, I’ve quit two toxic workplaces. You may wonder why I quit one, just to join another, especially when my focus has been on maintaining my mental health. It was simple. I needed a job, but I had my eyes set on something else—something greater—so I didn’t mind it. It was only ever going to be temporary. The job kinda found me, and it was super convenient. It was low stress and not super taxing for a time, which freed up the brainpower that I needed to be able to write. I could come home fresh and ready to get my creative juices flowing. Something that I hadn’t been able to do in the six years prior. 

Truth be told, I’ve wanted to try my hand at writing for a while. But something always held me back. Usually it was fear and anxiety, often times it was excuse making. It was something that I was good at, letting fear control my life, believing the misconceptions. When you’re mentally and emotionally drained for long stretches at a time it’s easy to allow outside circumstances to dictate your life. It’s easy to hold yourself back and to let yourself be held back. When you’ve self-deprecated for over two decades, and your self-esteem has been running on fumes for as long as you can remember, making excuses feels natural. Underestimating your competence, understating your abilities, convincing yourself that you’re not capable of more, believing that you’re destined for mediocrity. All these things are lies that we tell ourselves. Lies that prevent us from becoming the best version of ourselves that we can be.

For the longest time, I was plagued by a nihilistic mindset. I didn’t know what I wanted from life. I didn’t know what I could contribute. I didn’t know what I was passionate about. I didn’t know what fulfillment felt like. I didn’t know what satisfaction was. I believed that I was destined to live an uninspired existence. To work laboriously because that was all we were put on this earth to do. To grow up, work, recreate, and die. In that fucked-up brain of mine, I thought that my life was out of my control. That I was subject to the whims of whatever uncaring god was out there. I found myself stuck at a dead-end job, but what proved more detrimental was that I was stuck in my mindset. I had stopped dreaming a long time before that. I had forgotten what it felt like to strive for something better. I had never known what my self-worth actually was. I had convinced myself that I had already peaked, that it would only go downhill from there. The risk taker in me had been overcome by my fear. 

It was easy to keep being mediocre, to maintain the status quo. Growing up, I had been taught to seek comfort. To find something stable. Not to take too many risks. This led me to the false belief that settling was acceptable. That just okay was good enough. I didn’t know what it meant to dream big, or to seek greatness, or to have ambition. The anxiety and depression that I suffered through in my teenage years and early twenties was crippling. They prevented me from becoming the best version of myself that I could be. In truth, I didn’t think I was capable of goodness, let alone greatness. My demons had robbed me of all of my ambition. There are many things that I could blame, but I’m not going to do so. One of the first steps in transitioning to adulthood is taking responsibility for your actions and holding yourself accountable. Shit happens that may or may not be within your control. That doesn’t matter. What does is how you react to such circumstances. What’s important is that you learn from any and all experiences—good or bad. It doesn’t matter how they came to be. 

Everyone goes through shit. That’s a fact of life. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has their own demons and vices. How you speak, how you think, how you act matters. All of this stems from having a healthy mind. I say this time and time again, but I will continue to do so until I go blue in the face. Get your mind right and everything falls into place. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but you have to keep at it. I didn’t accomplish anything meaningful in the first twenty-seven years of my life. That’s because I had a bad attitude and an overly pessimistic mindset. At some point in time, a small voice needled its way into my brain, telling me that I couldn’t do shit, that I wasn’t capable, that I was useless, that I was trash. As disappointments stacked, I started to believe this voice. I gave it room to grow. To fester. To corrupt. The more I fed the voice, the more I believed the lies.

Unfortunately, this isn’t unique to me. As millennials, we were conditioned to run from our problems. To hide them in a lesser traveled area of our brain. Our parents’ generation didn’t really understand mental health, therefore not much focus was put into fixing the issues. We were told to suck it up. Be happy. Don’t worry about it. But as we got older, as we shifted from early-twenties to late-twenties we started to realize how detrimental this was to our well-being. Ignoring the trauma only made things worse. Numbing the pain was only a temporary fix. Pretending to be strong only sapped our energy. We were left broken and we didn’t know what came next. Some of us have found our healing. Some of us have addressed issues we’ve been ignoring for twenty years. Unfortunately, many more of us are either still broken or are trying to figure things out.

I’m blessed to be a part of the former group, but it didn’t come without growing pains. Of course, I had good days and I had bad days. Mostly bad. Figuring things out on my own didn’t quite work out as I had expected. For a while I was too stubborn to seek out the help that I needed. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t have the answers, because that would mean admitting that I was consistently failing to meet expectations. But these weren’t expectations that others had of me, but rather expectations that I had projected onto them. I was supposed to be such and such a person, because that was what was trendy. I was supposed to study this, because it was a respectable career path. I was supposed to do that, because it would make me less of a loner. I worried so much about what others thought of me that I had lost sight of what I thought of myself. At the end of the day, it’s the thing that matters the most. If you don’t love yourself, why would someone else love you? If you don’t respect yourself, why would you be deserving of respect? If you don’t think that you’re capable, why would others give you more responsibility?

I couldn’t find happiness because I felt none of these things. I didn’t love myself, I didn’t respect myself, I didn’t think myself capable. Life wasn’t fulfilling because I had no purpose. I had no purpose because I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped dreaming because I could no longer find the goodness in me. I was worth something, but I couldn’t see it. I had spent too many years downplaying my self-worth. Too many years living in fear. Too many years trying to please everyone but myself. Life was meaningless because I had lost all passion. And that was a dangerous spot to be in. I had gotten too comfortable with my mediocre life. But it wasn’t worth living, because I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t looking to make an impact on those around me. I wasn’t looking to seek greatness. I wasn’t willing to take any risks. I had asked myself, “is this it? Is there more to life?” and had resigned myself to it. 

But there is more to life than that. There’s more to life than being fine with okay. Okay isn’t good enough. Seeking greatness is the goal. You have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone to do so. I didn’t learn that until I turned twenty-seven, but it wasn’t too late. There isn’t really such a thing as too late. There’s always room for growth. There’s always time to change. You can always strive for better. There’s always more to learn. You aren’t confined to a box. You can step out, you can step up. Change is something that you need to seek. It won’t just happen, bad habits don’t go away on their own. You need to work at it until you break it down. Change has more to do with determination than it does with doing the right things. In order to change, you need to start with your mindset. The first step is to stop making excuses.

That was the biggest thing that held me back. It wasn’t my lack of self-confidence. It wasn’t my lack of drive. It wasn’t my fear. Yes, all of those played a factor in my average existence, but nothing played a bigger role than my excuse making. I didn’t write because I gave myself reasons not to. That was the easy way out, and I took it because I didn’t know how to deal with adversity and I didn’t want to. But anything worth doing takes effort. It takes determination. And it takes self-control. If you don’t force yourself to do things, chances are you won’t do it. I think I know that better than most. 

Writing for me happened in spurts. Inspiration came and went. Without any determination, that left me not doing what I do best for long stretches at a time. I always had a way with written word, but I needed refinement and I needed direction. But most importantly I needed encouragement. I needed someone to remind me that I was good at something. I needed someone to help me realize that I had talent and that I was worthy of praise. I’ve mentioned many times that I wrote poems and lyrics as a kid. Somewhere down the line that changed, and removing my creative outlet left me feeling empty. Writing is what I was meant to do. I was put on this planet for a reason: to help others using my words. It took me more than two and a half decades to realize that, but I will run with it and never look back.

In the autumn of 2019, things began to change. By that point I had been seeing a therapist for over a year. I had finished breaking down and I had finished healing. So what came next? I didn’t really know, until she asked me if I was happy with my career. No surprise that I said that I wasn’t. I had spent my whole life chasing something that I didn’t actually want. It wasn’t my dream, it was someone else’s. It was time for me to start chasing the thing that had eluded me for so long. It was time to stop making excuses, and start writing. It was time to turn my idea for a novel into something tangible. I’ve had my ups and downs, but I’ve stuck with it this whole time. I’ve figured stuff out on my own, I’ve had to look things up. 

After I quit my job, I started writing in isolation. For several months it bore fruit. I could see progress. I could see improvement. But I didn’t have any external affirmation. No one saw my work but me. Which was fine for a time. I hadn’t yet grown confident in my ability. However, even the loneliest hermit needs affirmation. Even the biggest introvert needs people to care. Everyone needs to know if they’re on the right track. I thought I was, but I didn’t know for certain. Which brought me back to therapy. I needed new answers. I needed to know what came next.

I needed writer friends. I needed peers. I found that in October through an online writing community. It led to some growth. It was scary, putting my work out there, but it helped me to learn and improve. I had some positive, helpful feedback. I had some not so helpful feedback. Assholes exist everywhere. For a few months I fell back into old habits. Every hater, everyone who told me that my writing wasn’t good put me in a rut. I took each and every criticism personally. Every negative comment felt like a dagger to the heart. The voices that told me that I wasn’t good enough began to rear their ugly heads again. The feelings of doubt started to reemerge. I started asking myself if I was built for this. If I had enough talent. I began spiraling back into this rabbit hole of insecurity. But an angel came and rescued me. In January I met my ideal reader—he is mine and I am his. Someone who understands the story the way that I understand it. A writer whose strengths and weaknesses complement mine. We are symbiotic. A friendship, a partnership, a collaboration that will go a long way. 

The going may be tough at first, but your hard work will pay off in the end. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Don’t believe the voices that tell you that you aren’t worth shit. You are capable of so much. You can do good. You can be good. You can be great. But in order to do so, you have to keep on keeping on. Push yourself higher and higher. Dream big; never stop dreaming. Everything is within reach. Nothing is too ambitious if your eye is set on it. You just have to force yourself to do it. Eventually the habit will stick. Your hobby will become your passion. You are meant to make an impact on those around you. You are capable of great things. Goals are within reach, but life doesn’t end there. They are only milestones, not end points. Life is a neverending journey. Keep reaching higher. Aim for perfection though perfection can’t be attained. When the time comes, you will show the world that you are worthy.

Brokenness, Changing, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Hope, Mental Health, Self-Love

Back to School

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I started seeing my therapist again. I’m not afraid to admit that. I have said before that when I stopped going I felt like I had graduated from it. I still feel that way, but just because I graduated doesn’t mean I can’t go back to school. The issues that had plagued me didn’t pop back up—I didn’t slip back into depression or suffer through crippling anxiety. I didn’t regress. You know I’m not about that. I won’t ever let that happen. As we get older we should only be moving in one direction: onwards and upwards. Anything else is a failure. The more life we experience, the wiser we get. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

So, it may seem like going back to therapy is a step backwards, but it’s not. Your mental well-being is more important than anything else in the world. If you don’t have a healthy mind, things are not going to work out. You’re only making things harder on yourself. You need to get out of your own way. The best way to do that is to address your issues head-on, starting with getting your mind right. Once you have your mind right, everything falls into place. The hardships aren’t as hard, the outlook isn’t as draining, the blessings aren’t as easily ignored.

Accepting that you need help does not make you weak. Acknowledging your flaws does not make you less of a person. Admitting that you’re wrong does not change other’s perceptions of you. You are human, and humans make mistakes. Every person has their own issues. Whether you accept that these are things that need fixing is up to you. Things can change if you’re willing to put in the effort. Bad habits can be broken. Mindsets can be altered. Outlooks can be shifted. But none of this can be done if you don’t have the drive. 

You need to motivate yourself to change if that’s what you really want. There’s no cause without effect. Change won’t happen unless you put in the effort. You will have setbacks. There will be times where you feel destined to fall back into old habits. It’s all a part of the process. Sometimes you have to take a few steps backwards in order to go forwards. But you have to keep trying, no matter how difficult. You have to keep pushing. Yes, there’s risk involved with trying, but there’s also the potential for a great reward. You won’t know what’s in store for you until you’ve put in your best effort. Things might not happen the way that you envisioned, but at least you know for certain now. You tried your best and it didn’t work out, so try your hand at something else. That’s the only way to live a life that feels fulfilling. 

Failure doesn’t come from lack of effort. Every experience in life comes with a lesson—good or bad. If you learned something from an endeavor that fell short it counts as a success. You learned something valuable for next time. Success and failure are relative, they need reference points in order for them to make sense. One person’s failure is another person’s success, or vice versa. So, instead of seeing things as successes and failures, instead focus on winning and losing. The only way you fail is if you lose. And the only surefire way to lose is giving up. Persistence is often underrated and overlooked. If you’re passionate about something, you’ll find a way to make it work for you. If you’re not good at it, the only way you’ll get better is through practice.

In the age of social media, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to see the end result—that’s what is broadcast far and wide—but we don’t often see the process. We don’t see how much time and effort it took for a musician to write a song. How much trial & error. How much practice it took for them to master their instruments. Sometimes we think that things in life come easy, but they don’t. Everything worth doing requires hard work. It requires ambition. It requires learning. It requires admitting that you don’t know the answers, but are willing to find them. It requires allowing others to help you. But most importantly, it requires sticking to it. Learning through the ups & downs, the bumps & bruises. You need to stay motivated, some way, some how. 

And the best way to do that is to be confident, and to stay optimistic. Of course, that’s easier said than done. You know me, I was once the most pessimistic person in the world. I had to train myself to be the man that I am today. That also took hard work. Switching your mindset from glass-half-empty to glass-half-full is monumental. It might even seem impossible, but again, persistence is key. Don’t give up, don’t give in. Glass-half-empty might be the only way you know, but it’s a fallacy. Believe me when I say that. It’s a trap that sucks the fun out of living. It’s a demon that tells you that you’ll never be good enough. It’s a belief system that sets you up to fail. 

Self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing. An easy lure to fall into if your mind is not healthy. Avoid this way of thinking at all costs. Learn how to win, forget how to lose. Self-fulfilling prophecies are no different than giving up—only you’ve given up before you even started. If you believe in your heart that things aren’t going to work out for you, they likely won’t! You become so focused on, “what if this fails,” that you don’t do everything in your power to make sure that it doesn’t. You’re doing yourself a disservice. You‘re trying to lose before you even put in the effort to try to win. 

Admit when you make a mistake. Allow that you can be wrong. Acknowledge that there might be a better way. Embrace your imperfections and know that they can be corrected. Some truths hurt. But reality isn’t all sunshine and roses. Life is tough. There are hard lessons to be learned. It’s all a part of human growth. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone learns from them. I believe that the same obstacles will be placed in your way until you change your ways. Learn from your mistakes, otherwise you might have to face the same ones over again.

I’ve certainly learned from my mistakes. My old mindset has not come back—I haven’t allowed it room to do so. But, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to keep making them. It’s a part of human life and cannot be avoided. So, instead of spending all that time pretending that you’re perfect, stop lying to yourself, and admit that you have issues. Admit that you may need help. Admit that you’re unsure of what to do. You’ll be better for it.

For a time, things weren’t going well. Yes, it wasn’t as bad as before, but it didn’t necessarily mean that things were working as efficiently as possible. After quitting my job I became a bit isolated, lacking social interaction. I became disillusioned with my writing, seeing as I had no external input on my content. My novel manuscript was a file on my computer that only I could see. I had no reinforcement, neither positive nor negative. No one to tell me if I was on the right track. No one to encourage me to keep on going. So, I went back into my contemplation and negative thoughts started popping up again. I began to doubt. I began to fear. I began to feel like I had made a rash decision. My mind was still healthy, but trending in the wrong direction. Before I let it go too far, I told myself that it was time. 

It was time to go back. To let go of my pride, and to once again admit that I needed help. That I needed more answers. That I needed more healing. That I needed an unbiased outlet for my thoughts. I hadn’t forgotten what I had learned in my first stint with therapy. All these things had been practiced and internalized. All these coping mechanisms were part of my routine now. But that didn’t mean that I had learned all that I needed to know. I had all the answers that I needed for that time, but then is then and now is now. The circumstances may have changed, the outlook may have improved, but that doesn’t mean I’m too big a man to speak to a therapist. Therapy served its purpose at the time, and it will serve its purpose now. I’m going back to school, so that I can continue to grow. There’s always more for me to learn.