Category Archives: Changing

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.

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

Fake It Til You Make It

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I think I owe you, my readership, an apology. I haven’t been as active on here as I want to be. I’m sure you’ve noticed that most of my recent posts have been poetry, and my blog entries have been few and far between. I have to admit that this long multi-post series has burnt me out to some extent. I’ve been writing about (or at least trying to) write about the same damn thing for so long that I’ve gotten kind of bored with it. I lost sight of where I’ve been trying to go. Directionless writing tends to leave you with your gears spinning in neutral, so we can just forget that for now. I will likely find my focus and finish it at some point, but I feel like I need to do something different. So here we go. 

I used to write a lot of poetry as a teenager and in my early 20s. In 2010/2011 there was a popular Facebook trend where people challenged themselves to post an artistic photo every day for a month or three months or a year. Photography had never been a strong suit of mine, so I had wanted to try something different—something I was better suited for. I decided to write poems. I drew inspiration from observing people and nature on my way to and from class. It was refreshing and gave me a different perspective on life. Up til that point (and a decade beyond), I had been extremely pessimistic. As you know, I wasn’t in a good mental headspace, and not in tune with my emotions. I was mad at the world. I hated myself. And I found it hard to count my blessings. It was easy to overlook the positive, and see only the negative. I was uptight, and judgmental. Opinionated but uninformed. Overall, not a particularly pleasant person to be around. But I didn’t know it, I lacked self-awareness. I was too caught up in my own head to open my eyes and see the world around me. 

Writing poetry allowed me to do that to some extent. Instead of finding new things to hate, I found things to appreciate. Birds for one. Trees for another. The smell of an autumn breeze. The sound of wind rustling through the leaves. A stray ray of sunshine peaking through the clouds. All these things I took for granted. All these things I hadn’t really noticed. They were just there, and to me, they would always be there. They didn’t mean anything to me, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t able to write about them. A lot of things in life can be faked. Appreciation for nature is no different. Faking it sounds bad, but it isn’t always. Sometimes it’s necessary in order for you to move on in life. Sometimes faking it is the only way for you to feel okay with your life trajectory. Sometimes it means tricking your mind into believing things that you can’t otherwise convince yourself to believe. 

I am a rational person. Logical and methodical. Things have to make sense in my head in order for me to function. It is a good character trait to have, but sometimes life calls for something different. I’ve said time and time again that one of the key elements to living a fruitful life is to have balance in all things. Being rational is good, but not all the time. Sometimes you need to show emotion, be spontaneous or impulsive. Not every decision needs to be well thought out. If you’re overly rational all the time, you risk missing out on impromptu moments that can’t be experienced any other way. If you’re not rational enough, you open yourself up for delusional thought or misguided actions. 

This is something that I have worked on and am still working on. Spontaneity will never be a strength of mine, I understand that. But it’s something that I need to embrace. I can’t always plan things out weeks in advance. Life doesn’t always give me that option, so I need to learn to adapt. However, adapting is easier said than done. Sometimes I feel lost if I don’t have my rational thought. True, it’s generally better for you in the long run. Making deliberate decisions (especially when it comes to finances) will afford you better control over your life. But often the counter to rationality is gratification—more specifically instant gratification. It’s often believed that the freer you are with your decision making and looser you are with your wallet the more fun you will have. You can make a decision that will pay off later, or you can indulge now. I won’t deny that there is some merit to that argument, but I wouldn’t go so far as to label it a universal truth. Not many things in life are. The world doesn’t operate in absolutes, despite how often they try to teach us otherwise. They want us to believe that everything is black or white, but that oversimplifies things. 

It has been some time since I’ve been in school though, so maybe things are starting to change. I don’t think it’s crazy to say that the way kids are taught now is not the way that I was taught. Culture has changed. Society has changed. Expectations and beliefs have changed. Growing up it used to be male or female, heterosexual or homosexual, good versus evil. That was how we were taught, that was how we were raised. It’s safe to say that this isn’t the way that kids are raised these days, judging from social media and Hollywood depictions of this generation. Everything seems to be on a spectrum nowadays. We operate on a sliding scale. I think we’re better for it. Classifying things as black or white turns situations into us versus them, leaving no room for deviance. It limits people into groups A or B, leaving no room for anything else. What if we’re both; what if we’re neither? What then? 

I have always been an outcast. I likely always will be. I’m fine with that. I am comfortable with myself. I like who I am, and where I’m going. Of course, it wasn’t always like that. It took a lot of hard work. Years of therapy fixed me, but it didn’t change me. Who I became through my efforts had always been there, hidden deep. It just took a key to unlock it. I didn’t change who I was, I merely gained confidence in my abilities and realized who I could become. In order to do that, I needed to know who I was. I needed to better understand what my role was in the grand scheme. I needed to understand the purpose that I served. Everyone has a role in life. We were all meant to make an impact—great or small, positive or negative. We are all cogs in a machine. 

However, we all play a different role. No two people are the same. No two people serve the same purpose. That’s something that I had trouble understanding growing up. I saw other people’s success and I envied them. I wanted to be like them and do the same things that they did. It didn’t matter if the pursuit wasn’t well-suited for me. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, without regard for potential consequences or possible outcomes. Unfortunately, the image of my heroes was all I could think about. I didn’t have the time or energy to spend on the work I needed to do to be like them. My outlook was short-sighted. I saw the starting point and I saw the destination, but I never paid attention to the journey. This proved to be a hindrance for many years to come. Anything is attainable—your dreams are within reach—but only if you work hard and invest the requisite time and energy. No surprise then that I wasted a decade of my life putzing around. I didn’t know any better though. It was easy for me to self-deprecate and diminish my own accomplishments. I didn’t think very highly of myself. I didn’t believe in myself and I had no confidence in my abilities. 

If you don’t believe in yourself, then who will? If you don’t love yourself, then  who will? If you don’t think that you can succeed, then who will? You can’t expect things to go well in your life if you don’t have faith. If you don’t think that you will succeed, then you won’t. It’s as simple as that. Self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t a myth. There’s no tangible evidence to prove it, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t see it in action. The world sees your energy and it replicates it. If you have trouble seeing the good in life and only focus on the negative, then bad things will keep happening to you. Negative energy will lead to negative results. What you get out of life is what you put into it. Karma is real. Vibes are real. Energy is real. Optimism is contagious, but so too is pessimism. When it comes down to it, the way someone experiences life centers on their mindset.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get stuck in an unproductive mindset. Our brains are still developing into our mid to late 20s. We’re treated like adults, but we’re not yet fully formed. We’re expected to grow up, but we aren’t fully grown. It’s a hard thing to reconcile, but that’s what college is for. It gives young adults a chance to mature before they’re thrown out into the real world. Having a college degree doesn’t necessarily guarantee us a high-paying job. Contrary to popular belief, that’s not the greatest impact higher education has. Its greatest impact is teaching us how to become independent. We’re given more responsibility and more freedom at the same time, while the stakes are relatively low. However, I would be remiss not to mention that college isn’t for everyone. I’ve said it before, and my stance hasn’t changed. Don’t mistake this as a handbill pushing youths towards college. That’s not my intent. That is to say that I would’ve been utterly lost and aimless without college. It afforded me four-and-a-half years to get my mind right before I jumped in. And even then, my mind wasn’t fully right or healthy, but at least it was on its way.

Breaking bad habits is hard. Especially when you’re a young adult trying to figure out the way of the world when your brain is still developing. I’m not saying anything groundbreaking here. It takes constant attention and training. It takes dedication and intention. Circumstances won’t change unless you will yourself to change. That’s the bottom line. Things rarely happen on their own. Sure, there might be good omens or good luck here and there, but it doesn’t last. If you want to grow as a human being, if you want to improve and expand your skillset, you need to work at it. You need to put your all into every endeavor. You don’t half-ass things. You don’t make excuses. You do. Simple as that. You set your eyes on a goal(s) and you keep advancing towards it. When you reach your goal, you set a new one. Your career has only milestones, it has no endpoint. 

Your achievements—big or small—mean something. They’re not to be taken lightly. Don’t downplay your skill level. Don’t talk badly about yourself all the time. Self-deprecation is fine in moderation, but don’t start to believe the lies you tell yourself for humility or humor’s sake. Learn to love yourself. Self-love more than anything will help you to achieve everything you’ve dreamed of and more. Your mental health matters. If you need to take a step back from a relationship or friendship to focus on getting your mind right, then do so. If you need to quit a toxic work environment to get your mind right, then do so. If you need to distance yourself from your parents or siblings to get your mind right, then do so. 

It’s hard, I know. We don’t like to admit that we have flaws or weaknesses. We don’t like to admit that sometimes we need to cancel plans because we don’t feel up to it. We might be drained mentally or emotionally, but we’re scared to let others see. Don’t be. We are all humans, and we all go through things. We all have moments when solitude is all that we ask for. We might feel guilty for making up a shitty excuse, but sometimes you just need to be alone. Take that time. Make the effort to make sure that your mind is healthy. Sometimes it’s hard to love yourself. I’ve gone through moments of deep self-loathing too. I understand your pain. 

But you have to rid yourself of that mindset. It does you no good. Start small. Count your blessings each and every day. If you can’t find things to be thankful for or proud of, then think in general terms. You woke up today. You have a place to live. You have food to eat. You have a job. You have family; you have friends. That’s more than some can say. You may not love yourself yet, but you will get there in time. Fake it til you make it. Remind yourself of what you have already. Remind yourself that you are loved. It may not be from yourself. It may not be from people around you, but someone out there loves you and cares about you deeply. Remind yourself of this every single day. Eventually the love may come from within. But until that time comes, you can fake it. It’s okay. 

Changing, Greatness, Growth, Poetry

Play the Victim

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It’s hard to take accountability
To hold yourself responsible
But life is tough
A constant challenge
It takes effort to be strong
But you’re better in the end

It’s a daily battle
Always fighting, never giving up
The greats endure, the greats fight on
When the going gets tough they buckle down
They strap in, they go to war

Strong of mind, strong of spirit, strong of heart, strong of body
Sometimes you want to play the victim
Sometimes you want to shift the blame
The truth hurts, it’s hard to hear
But you don’t get better
You don’t get stronger (without it)

You need to be realistic
The truth may hurt, but you need to bear it
You can’t run your whole life
You can’t hide from your insecurities
You have to pay the piper
He will come calling

How you respond is up to you
Do you continue to run?
Do you keep playing the victim?
Life is tough, that’s the truth
The strong survive, the weak wither

Play the victim, shift the blame
It serves no purpose, it leaves you weak
The world is short on sympathy
And rightfully so
We’re all trying to figure it out
There’s no room for pity
When there’s so much room for growth

Build and encourage
Advise and support
Positive energy is infectious
Take control, better is within reach
Stop playing the victim
Stop feeling sorry for yourself
Pity is toxic, brooding is dangerous
The world is wide open in front of you
Stop playing the victim, take control

Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Gender Roles, Greatness, Growth, Knowledge, Media, Questions, Reflections

Crossroads

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This is part three of a four-part series

My mental health journey has had many ups and many downs. That’s to be expected when you’re willfully living life like it’s a rollercoaster. Like I’ve said, the pre-therapy version of myself was not in control of his emotions, not very discerning, not overly knowledgeable. I wouldn’t say I was dumb. I was far from it. But I wasn’t nearly as smart as I made myself out to seem. Nor was I as unintelligent or as worthless as I believed. I resided somewhere in the middle, but for the longest time I didn’t really know where. I’ve said this a few times already but I’ll keep saying it: I’m not like most people. I think some people understood this pretty early on, but I most assuredly wasn’t one of them. You’d think my music choice would’ve tipped me off (I’ll touch upon this in more depth later), but evidently I was highly imperceptive. Being different, however, didn’t necessarily translate to tangible results such as more friends, a bigger social media following, more money, or what have you. In all honesty, I’ve never really cared about that stuff—at least not as much as your average millennial. 

After puberty, I had become the weirdo, the loner. That had always been the role that was meant for me, the niche that had already been carved out for me. It just took some time for me to finally embrace it. It took me a long time to learn how to love myself. But once I did, my outlook never looked rosier. I won’t go back to the way that I used to be. I can’t. Regression is the genesis of decay. Stagnation is its precursor. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. If you’re not improving, you’re deteriorating. You know where I’m going with this right? Sorry to say but I’m somewhat predictable. Be great! In everything you do. Excel at all things and strive to improve at every turn. It’s one of the many mantras that I’ve been repeating to myself since I embarked on this journey. 

Life in general is a journey, we hear this time and time again. It’s become cliche. But where did cliches stem from? Real truth. There will be ups and downs. There will be peaks and valleys. That’s just how it is. That’s how it always will be. How you deal with your adversity speaks more to your character than what you deal with. The only way to improve is to self-critique and to take constructive criticism into consideration. The former lays in the palm of your hand. It is wholly within your control. The latter generally proves to be more informative, but is not always a reliable source. Not in the sense that what others say is necessarily wrong, don’t mistake my intent. But in the sense that not everybody will tell you what you need to hear. Some people hold back, they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Others overlook your flaws in the name of friendship—there’s such a thing as taking “having your back” too far. Still others may be afraid of having a dissenting opinion, and would rather tell you what you want to hear in order to avoid conflict. 

A little disagreement is healthy. You don’t want your life filled with only Yes Men. You NEED varied opinions. You choose the people that you surround yourself with. But you don’t choose how they are, how they act, or how they react. That’s not up to you; that’s up to them. Everyone has a different way of coping with things. That’s just how it goes. You can only control yourself. You can’t control other people, you have to remember that. Manipulation is not a healthy way of getting what you want. The last thing you want is to be the reason why a friendship/relationship is toxic. The only thing worse than being around drama is being the drama. I’ve talked about cutting out toxicity from your life before. That doesn’t just mean distancing yourself from people or situations that drain your mental well-being. It also means self-evaluating, and changing the way you interact with other people (if you think it needs changing). We are quick to blame other people or circumstances when things go wrong. But we need to keep ourselves accountable. Hold ourselves to the same standard that we hold others. Sometimes culpability for toxicity falls on us. We have to be willing to accept that. We are not detached from it.

I’m not a relationship expert and I’m not going to pretend to be one. But I can say that the mark of a healthy relationship is having great communication. It’s imperative to have an equal partnership. It’s not optional! You give as much as you take. You respect them as much as they respect you—if not more. You help your partner with chores around the house. You help them raise your children. You do anything you can to be of use. But most importantly you talk about things. You clear the air, you say what’s on your mind. You likely won’t agree on everything. But in any case, you need to talk about it. Your intentions and beliefs should be clear to your spouse/partner and vice versa. Of course all of this is easier said than done. Communication (or lack thereof) is something that many of us struggle with. Oftentimes we’d rather bottle up than open up. It may seem easier that way in the short term, but that’s not the case long term. But it will take time, it will take effort, it will take persistence. It won’t just change overnight.

Unfortunately we’ve been stuck in an antiquated mindset for decades. Maybe the old way of thinking worked for the 19th and (early) 20th centuries, but it didn’t work in 2012 and it doesn’t work in 2022. We seem to have a hard time letting that go though. You know how it is. The people in power want to stay in power. But I won’t get into that here. For many many years we’ve lived in a patriarchal society. That’s not liable to change anytime soon. As such, we’ve been conditioned to see the world in a certain way. For the longest time we’ve had firmly defined gender roles, especially when it comes to family. The traditional view is to see the man as the breadwinner, and the woman as the homemaker. But times are changing, and we need to change with the times. This way of thinking doesn’t work anymore and it hasn’t worked for a while now. Thankfully, we’ve steadily moved away from it, but progress has been slow. Some people continue refusing to believe that this is the new reality. But it’s something that needs to happen. We can’t keep seeing the world in the same way that our forefathers saw the world. This world is not the world that they lived in. We as a society, therefore, need to adapt. A man can be a stay-at-home dad if he wants to. A woman can prioritize her career if she wants to. Both adults can work non-traditional jobs if they want to. As long as it’s what’s best for the family. What may be ideal for one family may not be ideal for another. Just as each person is different, so too is each family.

We need to change our view on non-traditional families. I don’t just mean same-sex marriage, blended families, or multi-ethnic. Our thinking on gender roles needs to change as well. It’s not the 1950s anymore, when women mostly stayed home. Career options for women are more than just teacher or nurse these days. I know we’ve become more progressive since then, but we’re still not progressive enough. In my view, the ideal society is a feminist society. I know that’s not what a lot of people want to hear, but it’s the truth. Unfortunately for us, many people misunderstand the meaning of the word. Many people take it to mean, “more power to women at the expense of men.” But that’s not what it means at all. Feminism is merely ideology that promotes the equality of genders. Nothing more, nothing less. But you know how it goes. Misinformation runs rampant in this day and age. It was bad enough when I was in school (only eight years ago!), but it’s somehow even worse now. Of course it doesn’t help that we have a cohort of politicians that don’t actually know anything about politics or how the US government works. Part of that responsibility falls on us for allowing such inept individuals to gain power. Voting for “someone like us” doesn’t help if they don’t know what they’re doing or what they’re talking about. It seems logical (at least to me). If they’re like us—uninformed and ignorant—then what makes you think they’re capable of leading? It’s the blind leading the blind. 

That tangent aside, it’s our duty as active members of society to combat misinformation in the media. It doesn’t take much. It starts with something as simple as fact checking before reposting things you see. It doesn’t take much time or effort to look something up. Of course, you could also take a class about topics that you don’t know about—it could be a college course, online tutorial, or a self-help book, etc. Know what you’re talking about before jumping wholeheartedly into a heated debate! Don’t be the person who misinterprets the meaning behind movements such as Feminism, Black Lives Matter, or “defunding the police”. Don’t be so quick to jump to a conclusion. Understand the context first, then make a decision. But even after doing so, be open to listening to differing opinions, and continue being respectful. They say there are “two sides to every story,” but that’s selling it short. It’s not just your side and my side. There’s also the truth, which they like to say, “often lies somewhere in the middle.” The key word there is often. Somewhere in the middle isn’t always the case either! What if both sides are lying or misremembering the facts? Be informed! Seek knowledge! Gain information! 

Again, there are many ways to do this. The Internet is great for that. That’s what it was created for: the sharing of knowledge & information. But you also have to be wary. Not everything you see is true. Not every source is legitimate. Watch out for unsubstantiated rumors. Most news media often has an inherent bias. Fox News and CNN may report on the same story, but you will likely draw different conclusions from each outlet. That is because they have different target audiences, and as such, have a different bent on their coverage. Understand the context of what you are reading, hearing, or watching. Know that news media thrives on sensationalism. Yes, the world is a fucked up place, but it is not nearly as violent or as corrupt as they make it out to seem. Shock and awe makes money, as does panic; happiness does not (at least in their eyes). Learn to understand the thought process behind news media. Be deliberate in trying to improve your media literacy.

Most of what I say here I say from experience. I like to know what I’m talking about. I like to be informed. But most of all, I do not want to be the purveyor of false information. It goes against my ethos. I don’t usually talk just to talk. Of course, I don’t always choose my words carefully. I’m not perfect! But I try my best to be a positive influence on a conversation. What that looks like depends on the conversation and the audience. Sometimes I get carried away when I get too passionate. Sometimes I end up putting my foot in my mouth. I’m much better at writing than I am at talking. I’m more coherent that way. But even so, I still try to say meaningful things and give good advice. Now I wasn’t always like that. I know for certain that there were times when I was not a meaningful contributor to a conversation, and there were times when my input either ended a conversation prematurely or made it uncomfortable or was tainted with pessimism. We all had a darker past. We were all immature or ignorant at some point (maybe we still are in some ways). Sometimes we just didn’t know any better. Other times we thought we knew more than we did. Some of us were trapped in our own world. Others were just plain delusional. But when it came down to it, we were all trying in our own way. Right or wrong, good result or bad, most of us are trying to make something of ourselves while also striving to be good people. Doing that takes a lot of learning and growing. Trying and changing. 

For many of us, this process can be jumpstarted through higher education. Of course, higher education wasn’t meant for everyone. Some people aren’t interested in it, others can’t afford it, some aren’t good at it, and some just don’t need it. College is not the be-all and end-all like it’s made to seem. There are other options. As for me, college is and was a part of my life experience. Truth be told, I was not mature enough to transition directly from high school to adulthood. The four and a half years that I had spent in college was necessary and fundamental. Now I do have my gripes about the cost of higher education, but it certainly wasn’t a waste of time. Life truly is what you make of it. Nothing is ever really a waste of time; good or bad there are always lessons to be learned. You just have to adopt the right mindset. Don’t be the person who grumbles their way through hardship. A debbie downer. A complainer. Don’t be the person who can’t see the good in life. Nobody wants to be around that person. I would know. I was that person for well over a decade. Learn from your mistakes. Face your adversity and understand that there are ALWAYS lessons to be learned. Count your blessings, you’ll be better off for it.

Unfortunately for me, I have let too many valuable lessons fall to the wayside. For a long time I didn’t learn from my mistakes. I didn’t understand the reasons for my hardships; I couldn’t see past them. I muddled through life because it was the easiest option. The life lessons I could’ve learned at 20 or 21, I instead learned at 29 or 30. These things could’ve made a huge difference early on, but would’ve ended up taking me on a completely different journey. It wasn’t the path that was intended for me. The right things happened at the right time. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if the timing had been any different. Like I always say, your adversity is a part of you. Your hardships play a role in who you are as a person. The lessons you learned in life were learned at exactly the right time. There is a time and a place for everything. There is a reason for everything that happens. You just need to dig deep, do a little soul-searching, find the answers within yourself. But don’t worry if you can’t/don’t find them right away. Hindsight is a powerful tool. Introspection and reflection uncover many hidden truths.

Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with a great memory and excellent recall. Otherwise these unlearned lessons would’ve gone to waste. If there’s one thing I can thank my anxiety for it’s that. My constant overthinking has proven to be a boon in some instances. Just because you didn’t learn something at the time of your trauma doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from it still. The only wasted lessons are ones that remain unlearned. The only pointless adversity is when your behaviors and/or attitudes do not change as a result. The only time mistakes do not precipitate progress is when you repeat the same ones over and over. Learn from your mistakes, learn from your adversity, learn from your struggles. There are reasons why you’re going through what you’re going through. Dig deep, and persevere. It won’t be like this forever. Things do get better. But not if you don’t put in some effort. You can always perform better. You can always learn more. Something can be picked up from every circumstance or experience—positive or negative. The more life that you experience, the more wisdom and knowledge you’ll possess. With this comes clarity and an altered perspective. This allows you to view your past through a different lens. You know more now than you did then, and with that, you should be able to continue learning more life lessons.

During my time in college, I had learned a lot of things about myself. But there was always more to learn. I don’t think I quite understood that then. I said ages ago that there are people who go through life acting like there is nothing left to learn, and there are people that act like there is everything left to learn. Be the latter. You don’t have all the answers. You won’t have all the answers. But that doesn’t mean you don’t constantly strive to find out more. Isn’t that the essence of human existence? Finding out more? If you spent years not seeking knowledge or looking for answers, don’t fret! Again, hindsight is a valuable tool. There are many lessons hidden in your past just lying there for you to uncover. Sometimes you have to find a way to relive your past. Therapy is a great way of doing so. A way to address issues that you had conveniently ignored. If you’ve read past posts of mine, you know that conveniently ignoring things was a crutch of mine. Something I relied upon heavily. I was so non-confrontational back then that I ran away from everything—even myself. I avoided introspection because I didn’t want to deal with it. The war within my mind may as well have been a street fight. I was my own worst enemy. I neither liked myself nor respected myself. 

But I was already more accomplished than I allowed myself to accept (or at least I wasn’t the failure that I had already labeled myself). At twenty-years-old it’s way too early to determine that. You haven’t experienced enough life to say that. Your life really hasn’t even started yet. Your brain is still developing at that age. You couldn’t have failed if you hadn’t even had a chance to try. Oftentimes the pressure you feel is internal; it’s unnecessary strain that you put upon yourself. Being your own worst critic has its upside and its downside. For me, I was a double major: business management, and sociology. Not everyone is capable of that, but I didn’t seem to realize it. It didn’t matter that the business program required me to double major or minor in something. Being a hard-working student was still the primary prerequisite for completing the program. It doesn’t say it on the program notes or the syllabi. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Yes, not every college graduate is smart or hard-working (it’s all relative), but it took some level of competence and some level of effort to finish.

That already is a great accomplishment, don’t diminish that for yourself. If you completed something that you set your mind to, that makes you a success. You only fail if you give up. You may not see tangible results right away, but you will see them as you keep on plugging. I finished college because I had set my mind to it. Receiving my Bachelor’s Degree was something I got to check off of my to-do list. But just because I finished, doesn’t mean that I had found my calling in life. I never had been all that interested in business management, I’m still not. But it was the thing that had kept me grounded. People respect business majors, they expect great things from businesspeople. So that’s what I had gone for. But unbeknownst to me, I had boxed myself in. I had limited myself from fulfilling my potential. I had shoved a round peg into a square hole. It took slogging through six years at the same dead-end job for me to finally realize that I could do better. That I was meant for so much more. I wasn’t destined to be a Customer Service Rep or a Salesperson. That wasn’t me, although I was good at the former (not so much the latter). It wasn’t my passion. It wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. It wasn’t even my greatest strength. I only excelled at it because I had put it in my mind to do so, but I couldn’t have been more disinterested. I WAS DOING THE WRONG THINGS WITH MY LIFE. 

But years before I had made that discovery, I had come to an entirely different crossroads. Who I was clashed with who I was becoming. But this change didn’t come about through business school. It was through sociology—women’s studies in particular. My first women’s studies class was during the spring semester of freshman year. I didn’t take it because I wanted to; I took it because it fit in with my schedule. And I’m glad that it did. The first thing that it taught me was that although I had been a Christian my whole life, I did not have much love in my heart. Ironic for a religion that is touted as the religion of love. But that was who I was then. Someone who was hard-hearted. Close-minded and ignorant. I was low-key racist, misogynistic, homophobic, whatever you can think of. I was covert in my mentality as opposed to overt. But it doesn’t make that mindset any more acceptable. It didn’t change the fact that I was a bigot. It really didn’t matter how I framed it—my world view was offensive. Of course I dug my heels in at first. I had always been a stubborn person, and regrettably, quite sheltered. I hadn’t mentally prepared for the culture shock. In one semester, my world had been flipped on its head. What I thought was right, what I had thought of as “my truth” was slowly becoming the opposite. Truth be told, at the age of nineteen, my education had only just begun. Up until then, what I thought I had believed was not actually that. It wasn’t what I believed, it was what was indoctrinated into me through theology and pseudo-theology. Things I had been led to believe, which I later questioned. Ironically, many of these misconceptions had been taught to me from close people around me: mainly the church and family friends. 

Regrettably, not all churches teach Biblical truth. Nearly every church is liable to err on certain things. Some aspects of church doctrine are subjective. You will differ on some things as a result. It’s inevitable. You’re likely going to struggle to find a church whose world view lines up perfectly with your own. That being said, just as there is no such thing as a perfect Christian, there also is no perfect church. It does not exist. Humans are imperfect creatures, as such, any human institution will also be imperfect. Growing up, I had attended a Chinese church. I have many issues, but I don’t want to get into them here, so just a word of warning: be wary of ethnic churches. Very wary. Of course, I can only speak for the culture I grew up in, but it can also be applied to others. I’ve noticed that Chinese cultural mores are sometimes passed off as Christian theology. For example, filial piety and obeying your parents are very similar things, but they are not the same. They can coexist, and maybe they should. But the former should not be portrayed as Christian theology, because it isn’t. If something doesn’t sound right, don’t be afraid to look into it further. Ask questions when opportunities arise. Not doing so is one of the few things I regret. I hadn’t asked the right questions when I was younger, and I never really received satisfactory answers anyway. Oftentimes questioning was conflated with doubting. The former does not necessarily lead to the latter.

Unfortunately for me, for most of my youth I had been told not to ask questions. Not from my parents necessarily, but from those around me (especially at church). For a time I obeyed. I tried not to ask questions because I didn’t want to show others my lack of faith. But I was doing myself a disservice. By not asking the right questions, I was blindly believing what was taught to me rather than getting a better understanding of what it was that I actually believed. Of course, this never sat well with me. Everyone knows that I have always been very inquisitive. It’s part of my nature. But also part of my nature (at least previously) was lacking self-awareness. I knew something was off about the vibe but I couldn’t pinpoint what. I would go to all the church functions and act like a “Christian,” but something always felt like it was missing. But I never knew what. And it did not materialize during my time at church or during my hiatus away. It took leaving and coming back for me to figure out what it was. 

I never actually had a relationship with God. I knew how a Christian was “supposed” to act and I knew all the Bible stories, but I had never felt Him at work in my life. And that was because I wasn’t asking questions. I wasn’t able to get to the root of my belief. Up til then (and even past that) all I had was knowledge, with no application. Knowing about the Bible will only get you so far (likewise, having that relationship but not knowing the stories will leave you with the same amount of understanding—which is to say NOT ENOUGH). My view of who God was was heavily skewed. I saw Him as a vengeful god, not a god of love. So it’s no real wonder that I didn’t have much love in my heart when I got to college. But that wasn’t just it. That wasn’t the only thing that was missing. Not asking the right questions went deeper than that. It wasn’t just about my faith. It was about not knowing who I was, or who I wanted to become. Not knowing what interested me or what I wanted to do with my life. But more importantly it was about not knowing what happiness felt like and not knowing what would make me happy. It was about not finding fulfillment in what I did and not knowing what it felt like to live a fulfilling life. My life felt meaningless for many years. Because I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped dreaming a long time before. What dreams I had had been suppressed. Because I was easily influenced and swayed. I had spent so many years substituting what I wanted with what I thought was expected of me, that I had lost sight of what it was that I had wanted. And that to me was the greatest travesty. My life had become dominated with “woe is me,” and “will I meet expectations?” and “am I capable of what they think I am or am I destined to disappoint?” It wasn’t about doing better and being better, it was about not failing. I wasn’t thinking about how prosperous my life could be. I was focused on what it wasn’t rather than what it could be. What kind of life is that?

Be great! Ask questions! Seek knowledge! Find improvement! Keep dreaming! Continue chasing! Strive for better! Make a difference! Cause an impact! Never give up! Good things may come to you, but you need to seek greatness. Elevate yourself to a higher mental plane. Mediocre isn’t good enough. Okay isn’t good enough. Good enough isn’t good enough. There is no destination without a journey. Continual progress makes for a more fruitful journey. The only way forwards is up. Be better today than you were yesterday. Failure is not an option. To fail is to give up. Life is full of lessons. Success comes when you learn from your mistakes. Stop making excuses and take control. Grab life by the horns. You are the rider, not the bull.